Infinity War - by Katie Trillion
by Katie Trillion
Summary: What ifs always intrigue me - little quirks in the storyline that cause the entire timeline to crash and burn. What if, at the end of my Age of Ultron, Emma wasn't kidnapped by HYDRA? Who would want her for her abilities? Who would want to manipulate her again, turn her from innocent girl to living weapon? Who would save her? Well, dear reader, take a guess...
1. Chapter 1

Infinity War: **SHOTS**

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Note: Please don't kill me when you read this. You don't care that I asked you not to, do you? Thought as much. Alright. At least make it quick.

* * *

_Am I out of luck?_

_Am I waiting to break?_

_When I keep saying I'm looking for a way to escape _

…

_I'm sorry for everything, oh, everything I've done_

_From the second I was born it seems I've had a loaded gun_

_And then I shot, shot, shot a hole through everything I loved_

_Oh, I shot, shot, shot a hole through every single thing that I loved_

_Shots, _by Imagine Dragons

* * *

Emma was screaming, screaming even worse than she'd done at HYDRA. Pain wracked her limbs and made her jolt in agony.

Ebony Maw stood over her, using his telekinetic ability to orchestrate the groups of glowing pearly spikes that were piercing her all over her body, sticking out like ugly glowing maggots that were growing through her, eating her up with pain until she was nothing at all, just a shadow.

The pain was almost unbearable, carried by treacherous nerves all over her body, unstoppable and constant, throbbing, almost alive as it curled through her, around her, inside her like a malignant tumour.

Ebony Maw smiled, twisting his thin lips into a cruel sneer.

Emma swore at him out of the corner of her mouth, then a spike dug in below her jaw, and Emma could feel the point pushing her tongue up, on the edge of piercing it.

She could barely talk through the pain and the spike in her mouth, she didn't have enough energy left to scream now, nothing.

Emma felt the man approaching before she saw him, but she knew who it was anyway.

It was Thanos.

"How are we today, little one?" The Titan moved his hand and the pearly spikes vanished. Ebony Maw stood back, looking disappointed.

"But Master, don't let me stop hurting her now, it was just getting fun," he whined, sounding like a small child deprived of a favourite toy.

Thanos glared at him, and he backed down immediately, scuttling hurriedly off into a corner.

"Emma," Thanos said, "How do you feel?" He waved his hand again and the many cuts and scrapes on Emma's body healed.

Thanos took hold of her metal arm and Emma flinched but didn't pull away from him. "Fine, Father. I'm... I'm fine."

"Still having nightmares?"

Emma nodded, staying silent this time.

"Don't worry, they'll stop in time, little one."

Emma shook her head. "Father... Father, my nightmares are about you. Not always, but sometimes I see you."

Thanos smiled, looking at the girl like she was a dog that had just performed a clever trick. "Good girl! Call me father, that's it. I'm your father now, aren't I? I'll always be here for you, my girl."

"Yes, Father. I know you'll always be there for me. But... but my dreams... I keep seeing things that can't possibly have happened..." Her voice trailed off, and she sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged with her face in her hands.

Thanos walked to his throne and sat down, looking at the red-haired girl.

"What do you dream about, Emma?"

Emma took a deep breath. "A man that looks like a robot. I see him first, most of the time. He always speaks, he always looks concerned for me, but I can never hear what he is saying. Sometimes there is a man with a metal arm like mine. He has long dark hair and his eyes are full of sadness. He looks at me with concern, like the android man, and he's holding something out to me that I can never reach; there is a gun in his other hand, not pointing at me, but I know that he will shoot me if he has to." Emma paused, looked at Thanos, and continued.

"Then I see people screaming and running, all people, small children, teenagers and adults, running from... I can't remember. Then I see a man in a red-and-gold metal suit being slowly crushed into the ground." Emma half-smiled, for some reason the image was satisfying.

"The metal around him is so hot it is almost liquid, and it is liquid now, beautiful and mirroring the sky. The sky is blue, too blue. Everything is pin-sharp, every colour too bright, a stab at my eyes. I can hear the man's screams as his skin burns and blisters under the molten metal. I see his hand, red and burnt, clawing up from the metal, but it flounders for a second then it is covered by the flowing liquid metal. I know that he is dying, and I feel happy. I can't remember exactly, but I think that he has been... unkind to me in the past. I am not sure how, and I can't remember his name either."

Emma tried yet again to remember, but came up empty, as she always did. The dream floated in front of her eyes again, and she continued talking:

"I see another man, dressed in blue and with blonde hair. Something shiny and circular is embedded in his side and he is bleeding onto the ground; there is blood trickling from the wound and congealing on the metal object's surface. The man's face is covered in scratches and dried blood as well, and he is a pitiful sight. The man with the metal arm reaches out to him, and the blonde man shakes his head, like saying 'Y_ou can't save me_.'" Emma rubbed her eye, like she might be crying. She was not sure why, but felt an overwhelming sense of combined guilt, shame, and terrible grief.

"He's covering the wound with his hand, then pulls the shining circle out of his ribs, sending a gush of blood over the ground, and the man's jaw tightens in pain, but he does not scream. He says something that I can't hear to the long-haired man and he stands up and walks away, leaving the blonde man to die on the ground with no one to comfort him. I look closer, and the blood looks – it looks too red against the grey concrete he is lying on." Here Emma paused again.

"Keep talking, little one," Thanos prompted.

"And sometimes I see a young man, a little older than me. He has pale blonde hair and dark eyes and he is running so fast he's a silver-blue blur, but I can still see him. He is like a light, he stands out the most against something dark that I can't penetrate, but he's running away from me and I want him to come back but I can't catch up, I've got no chance. I... I am not what I feel about him, and I cannot remember his name, only his face. He has no significance to me other than that." Emma wasn't sure if she was lying or not.

Faltering a little, she finished: "Th-Then I see blood. Blood and darkness, darkness inside, behind the eyes. I see you. You snap your fingers. And I feel... I feel scared. Then there is nothing, and I am terrified."

Thanos patted her arm, looking a little worried, and said, almost absently: "Don't worry, little one. It was only a dream, and dreams are not reality. They do not exist, so do not try to remember names or faces or anything like that. They might hurt you in your dreams as well, so don't think about them, Emma. I do not want to cause you pain. Remember when I found you?"

"I was dying. I was alone. Nobody came for me until you found me." Emma said the words like she'd learnt them off by heart.

"Well, you'd been there a long time before I found you and you were unconscious for most of that time, so you might remember some things that haven't actually happened. And when you got here, we reminded you of what you might have forgotten. Do you remember, Emma? Do you understand?"

"Yes, Father."

"Good girl," Thanos repeated. "Proxima would like to see you."

Emma's face went as pale as death at the mention of Proxima Midnight's name, and she looked as though she were struggling not to scream again.

"Father, please, don't make me go to her."

For the first time, Thanos looked truly concerned. "Does she make you feel uncomfortable?"

"Uncomfortable?" Emma nearly screamed the word. "She - she – she's been coming to me in the night, Father. Please, please, I don't want to say, but please believe me, Father! Please believe me!"

Thanos looked absolutely livid for a second, then said: "She will be punished, my dear. There will be no doubt about that."

"Father... Don't hurt her too badly, so she can heal. Please. I don't want that to be my fault as well. But... I've been thinking. Father, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Emma."

"Are you sure that I'm your daughter?"

Thanos looked at Emma for a moment. Then he pulled a photograph from his pocket and showed it to her. It was a girl and Thanos. The girl looked like a much younger Emma, about six or maybe seven years old. Older Emma looked at the photograph and smiled.

Thanos checked that the girl recognised the faces, even though the photograph was completely false. He'd altered the girl's memories as soon as they carried her near-inert body to his ship. He wanted Emma to be happy with who and where she was; his intentions were completely honourable.

He had then trained Emma a little, let her fight against each member of his much more powerful and well-trained Black Order, and had let them torture her every time she lost, which was most of the time.

As a result, Emma was completely loyal to her 'father' and would do anything he told her to.

She also did not remember any of the events in Sokovia except her imprisonment at HYDRA, nor did she remember the Avengers in any way except when they appeared in her nightmares, and even then she was convinced that they were nothing more than dreams.

Thanos had begun altering the girl's memories the moment she was safe, in this order: first, the all-important 'revelation' that Thanos was in fact her 'father', which had taken some complicated mind-tinkering. Then, in order to obscure the suspicious way Emma had been found and saved by him, Thanos had fabricated a memory of an attack on the Sokovian HYDRA base and Emma being left outside, unconscious and bleeding from the head.

In the altered memory, hours later, Emma had flickered briefly into consciousness, but everything was a blur, which easily covered up her meeting and subsequent conversation with Vision. There was another period of unconsciousness, this time artificially induced, during which Thanos had messed around with her memories, then Emma had woken up, fully healed and utterly compliant to Thanos's wishes.

"Father?"

Thanos looked at her, slipping the photograph back into his pocket. "Emma. Must you ask so many questions?" The rebuke in voice was barely there, but Emma hunched her shoulders as though preparing for a blow or beating.

"I'm sorry, Father."

Suddenly a voice broke the silence that was growing between them:

"Father? What is this you have found? Another escaped Terran brat who you've brainwashed again? You know she'll probably die within a week; Terrans don't like this sort of thing."  
A tall, green-skinned young woman was walking towards them, standing tall, her long dark red hair rippling down her back. Two long swords were slung over her shoulders in two harness-type scabbards, and she looked down at Emma with disdain.

Thanos laughed. "Gamora, why do this every time we meet? You know Emma, you have seen her before."

"Getting tortured by Maw, possibly. Why do you collect children, Father? Why must you collect those to which you have no right?"

Emma looked up at Gamora and spoke in the same learnt-off-by-heart voice as before. "He is my father. He will always be there for me."

"That's what I thought as well. Well, girl? Do you have any reaction to anything?" She glared at Thanos. "No, of course not, because you've tinkered around with her memories," Gamora spat. She turned and walked out of the room.

"Father?"

"Don't worry about what she said, Emma. I would never do that to you."

"I know you wouldn't. You're my father."

Thanos looked at the girl – she was sixteen, maybe seventeen by now – Thanos made no effort to count birthdays – but she was still so childlike and oddly innocent in the way she spoke. He would have to fix that.

Thanos sighed resignedly. "Maw," he called, "come here. You can have the girl back now."

Ebony Maw scuttled out of the shadows, pearly spikes materialising around his hands, shivering in excitement and anticipation. Emma looked up at him, and the scars on her back seemed to ache in unison.

"Emma, my girl," Thanos said. "You do what I tell you. I am your father. Let him do this. It is his reward for being so patient, for having to wait so long for you."

Emma nodded, and Thanos sat back on his throne. "Begin." he said. "Emma, you may scream."

The first spike entered her neck, then another slashed at her leg, and a cluster of spikes began to tear at her right arm, digging deep bleeding gashes, and scratch uselessly at her metal left one. Emma obligingly screamed, even though she would have done so anyway.

"Good girl," Thanos muttered. He was playing with the Infinity Gauntlet on his left hand, all the holes to hold the Stones empty for the moment.

"Gamora!" Emma screamed, looking towards the door that the green-skinned woman had walked through. "Gamora, come back, please come back -"

"She won't come back, child," Ebony Maw whispered. He dug the spikes in deeper and deeper, and Emma screamed again and again until the sound was raw and choked with sobs.

"Gamora won't come and save you." he hissed in her ear. "She'll never value you when there is herself to be saved. And Proxima won't either. You know when she comes and sees you in the night? What she says? It's not true. She doesn't love you. Who would love _you_?"

* * *

The next time Emma saw another human being – well, at least human-shaped being, her father did not count – was a long time later, when the black-haired man had come onto the ship with the other man (he'd been addressed as Thor – where had she heard the name before? - Emma couldn't remember) in tow.

The second man had an eyepatch and roughly cut hair. He looked uncomfortable in his surroundings, and Emma couldn't help thinking that he would look better against the background of a stormy, lightning-strewn sky. She dismissed the thought as silly and childish.

Emma was hiding on a small balcony-like-thing, all half-broken and corroded railings splayed open and hanging precariously over the drop. Her leg was wrapped around a railing, the other hooked over a protruding spar of metal, and she was sitting, perfectly relaxed, looking down at the scene.

The second man - Thor - was buried in a mass of scrap metal by Ebony Maw and was helpless, utterly helpless.

The black-haired man – he was addressed as Loki – walked towards Thanos, and offered something – a glowing blue cube – an Infinity Stone? - to him, holding it out but keeping a tight grip on it.

Loki then made a speech, along the lines of "Almighty Thanos... blah, blah, blah," Emma couldn't be bothered with listening to all of it. Speeches didn't matter. What did were actions, and especially these.

Loki was shorter than Thanos, which gave her father an advantage of being able to reach down, but also, depending on how fast Loki reacted, gave the human an advantage. Wait – he wasn't human, was he? Emma knew an Asgardian when she saw one.

Emma saw the knife hidden behind his back and thought: _What an idiot. _Loki took a step forward.

"I promise you my undying fidelity."

Then his arm came up, knife exposed, almost touching Thanos's throat. Blue light immediately began to flicker around his arm, freezing it in place.  
Thanos chuckled softly. "Undying. You should choose your words more carefully."

Emma knew what Thanos was going to do. She could almost see it. She stood up, perfectly balanced, like a knife.

So, tensing her limbs in preparation to jump, Emma did the only thing that came naturally. She knew how she was going to get down there, pinpointing things – a metal spar here, another broken bit of balcony there, and a couple of backflips should do – no time to plan it all.

Emma launched herself off the balcony, flipped a few times, swinging from all the different points she'd pinpointed until she was exactly over the figure of Thanos as he reached for Loki's throat -

She got in the way.

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**Next chapter will be uploaded as soon as possible! Please ****review! Katie Trillion xx**


	2. Chapter 2: Blood Is Thicker Than Water

Infinity War: **N****ATURAL**

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Note: Dear Reader, you're going to kill me 154 words in (not counting song lyrics). Then resurrect me and kill me again when you get to the end of it. By the way, if you don't understand what is going on, please go to my profile and there should be a story entitled 'Age of Ultron' and read that for Emma's story.

* * *

_Natural_

_A beating heart of stone_

_You've got to be so cold_

_To make it in this world_

_Deep inside me_

_I'm fading to black_

_I'm fading_

_Took an oath by the blood of my hand_

_Won't break it_

_I can taste it_

_The end is upon us, I swear _

_Going to make it_

_I'm going to make it_

_Natural, _by Imagine Dragons

* * *

Emma felt Thanos's hand close around her throat, the metal of the Gauntlet cold against her skin, deathly cold. The purple-blue glow of the Power and Space Stones filled her vision, ready to annihilate her at a moment's notice. She was lifted into the air, her legs dangling and kicking helplessly. She managed to get a few words through the crushing pressure on her windpipe.

"Run now. Run. Get out." she croaked. Loki immediately followed the command, pulling Thor free of the pile of scrap metal and running like the Devil was after him – and Emma knew that he was, albeit in the giant purple shape of Thanos and the ruthless Black Order. Summoning her strength, she forced the atoms in the Black Order's bodies to freeze, giving Loki and Thor a chance to run.

She felt Proxima's hawk-like yellow eyes on her, moving despite Emma forcing her atoms to stay still, and felt her concentration waver.

It faltered for no more than a second, but it was enough.

Loki half-screamed as Proxima's spear entered his back and passed all the way through, leaving a hole, edged by blood and torn fabric, through which Emma could see the opposite wall.

"Loki!" Thor yelled, but there was no time. Loki's eyes found his.

"Go, brother," he whispered as he sank to his knees, cradling the wound, the light in his eyes slowly going out. Emma saw blood trickle from his mouth, very red, then she choked as Thanos's grip on her throat tightened and relaxed again.

Proxima walked over to Loki, picked up her spear, and ran it through him again, as though making sure he was dead. Loki lay, limp as a rag doll, on the floor, blood spreading in a slow pool around his body. His eyes were glassy and blank.

Proxima looked deliberately towards Thor. The god turned and ran.

"Let him go," said Thanos. "He is barely entertaining." He released his grip on Emma's throat, letting her fall to the ground and try to catch her breath.

"Father," she whispered, her voice hoarse and croaky from lack of air and Thanos crushing her windpipe, "Father, why kill him? He had done nothing to you."

Thanos glared down at her. "He has done everything to me. He betrayed me, he followed my orders, he betrayed me again. He deserved a slower death."

"Of course, Father." Emma didn't question him. She knew that if she tried to find out more, she would be punished.

Maw sidled up to Thanos, and a corona of shining spikes surrounded his hands again.

"No, Maw, not now. Not for no reason. That would be... barbaric. Emma, go to your room, please."

Emma managed to climb to her feet, breathing easily now. She avoided looking at Loki's body. His blank eyes were staring at her.

Then a blue-skinned young woman walked through the door, stepped over Loki's body as though she hadn't seen it, and pulled Emma up fully.

"Nebula?" Emma said.

Nebula sometimes came, but not as often as Gamora, and she was nearly always irritable and sulking. Then she would go and fight Emma (Emma almost always lost) and walk away on another quest for Thanos.

"Emma, for God's sake, when are you going to win?" Nebula said, her voice as sharp and snappish as ever.

"Maybe when you start not trying to break every bone I've got? Not all of us are cyborgs, you know." That remark always offended Nebula, and Emma always brought it up just for the satisfaction.

"You are as well, Emma," Nebula snapped.

Emma looked at her metal arm, suddenly confused. Jumbled memories began to fade into view in her head. "So is... I can't remember. A name. His name. B-" her voice faltered. Her metal fist clenched. "It begins with a 'B', but I can't remember the rest!" She tried again, her electronic eye sparking in frustration. She slammed her fist into a wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the metal. "B- Bu- No!" A stab of pain had flashed across her skull, making her gasp in surprise and brief pain. The faint memories vanished, leaving no record of ever having existed.

Nebula slapped her across the face, snarling: "You are like me, and there is nothing that is different about you and me. You do not remember anything, neither do I, and you will never, ever remember that name. Get used to it, little girl."

Only half-listening, the name vanishing from her mind, Emma backflipped over Nebula's head to avoid the woman's frustrated strike and scrambled up a pillar.

She found a horizontal pole jutting from its side and hung upside-down from it with her legs curled around the metal.

"Ha, can't catch me!" she called gleefully. Nebula snarled at her once more and flipped her a gesture that made Emma laugh. Then she stalked back out of the chamber.

Emma had really expected a bit more fight, if she was honest; they were actually getting fun now that she didn't lose every single time. Nebula _was _in a bad mood today.

* * *

Thanos was toying with the Infinity Gauntlet again, one of the holes now filled with the blue glow of the Space Stone.

"Emma is remembering," he muttered softly to himself. "But she is still loyal, loyal enough that she will do anything for me. She still believes that I am her father."

Thanos was reassuring himself, running his hand over the Space Stone absentmindedly. "And I have more important things to worry about. There are two more Stones on Earth, and as for the others, I will soon find them."

There was a scream from below, and Thanos walked away to stop Maw before he got too engrossed in his job. Maw would have to be dealt with if he wished to stay in the Black Order, but then again he was a good servant.

It was no good if Emma went insane.

* * *

Vision was sitting in his and Wanda's living room. He was thinking, thinking about the Infinity Stone that was pulsing in his head like a particularly malignant headache. He wished that it would go away, and he rubbed his forehead irritably before returning to staring out of the window. He wasn't looking at anything in particular, just using it as a focus to try and distract himself from the Stone.

Nope. Nothing had happened.

Vision felt the Stone pulse, contracting like a separate heart in his forehead, as though it was alive and evil.

"Vis?"

Wanda walked into the room, two mugs of tea balanced above her hands, surrounded by glowing spheres of red light.

"Wanda." For a moment, the pain in his forehead lessened. Noticing his wince as it returned, Wanda waved her hand, causing a streak of red light to hang in the air for a second, and the pain vanished. Vision relaxed visibly. "Thankyou, Wanda."

She handed him the cup of tea, kept almost-boiling by the heat that she'd trapped in the liquid and mug. "How are you feeling? Is the Stone bothering you again?"

Vision nodded, then winced again. The ache in his head had returned yet again to pulse in the centre of his forehead, just behind the orange glow of the Mind Stone.

"It's fine. I..." his voice tailed away.

"Vis? Vision, I won't let them hurt you. I would never let them destroy you for the Stone."

"But it must be done," Vision said, his voice as grave and serious as ever. "The Stone must not fall into Thanos's hands at all costs."

"I know, Vis, but I-" Wanda felt a tear fall from her eye, "I can't lose you. I _can't_."

Vision looked at her, at the red light gathering around her hands in her distress. He had never been loved before; he'd never even known how to act when he'd first emerged from the regeneration casket, surrounded by the then-hostile Avengers on all sides.

Vision hadn't understood Wanda's affection at first, felt confused as to why she would love him, but now he returned it. He loved Wanda and would do anything - _anything _\- for her.

And the Stone would take advantage of that. It could feel its fellows slowly being drawn into a new orbit – around Thanos's hand.

"Wanda... Sometimes I feel the Stone trying to take over. Look at me again and tell me what you feel. Please, Wanda." He paused. "I... I'm scared."

"Don't be scared, Vision. I know you'd never hurt me."

Wanda placed her hands on Vision's forehead, over the Mind Stone. Red light issued from her fingertips and swirled around the Stone. Wanda took her hands away and looked straight into Vision's eyes. "I just feel you."

* * *

Titan was decimated. The great skeletons of massive machines loomed over the group of humans who were attempting to take in their sheer scale.

"Peter?" Tony looked down at the war-suited kid next to him.

"Yes, Mr Stark?"

"I don't want you doing anything stupid. I'm treating this situation as 'babysitting duty' so if you come home covered in blood, your aunt's going to have some words with me, and her shouting will be heard in Sweden."

"Sure, Mr Stark! Nothing stupid, I promise."

"Good kid. Just save the world."

"I'll try my best, Mr Stark."

Tony put a hand on Peter's metal-encased shoulder. "I know you will, kid."

Ten minutes later, Peter was dead.

* * *

_Ten Minutes Earlier_

* * *

Emma felt the world materialise around her as she stepped out of the portal along with Thanos, who was adjusting the Space Stone in its socket; the purple glow of the Power Stone accompanied it as always, and now the yellow-gold of the Soul Stone and the blood-red glare of the Reality Stone.

Titan was a dump, she decided; a technologically advanced dump, but a complete dump of a planet nevertheless.

But she could see where she could jump from, already planning flips and jumps and other aerial gymnastics. Emma loved the feeling of flying and falling at the same time, in single, suspended moment with no regard for safety – just the crazy falling-flying-falling again.

Thanos placed a huge hand on her shoulder. "I have a task for you, Emma."

* * *

Tony swore under his breath.

"Mr Stark, I got the memo about Thanos, but who is she?" Peter looked at Emma with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

Addressing the rest of the Guardians and Stephen Strange, Tony raised his voice a little and said: "Her name is Emma Woods, also known as Medea. We thought she died in Sokovia, but apparently she didn't. Emma is one of the best fighters in the entire world. She fought the Avengers and won. If you must fight, everybody, don't go anywhere near her." Tony paused. "You'd lose if you did."

Quill gave him his trademark 'arrogant look' and readied the Guardians.

Tony sighed. There was no teaching some people.

Peter was looking at the girl's metal arm and the cold stare of her electronic eye, imagining the strength contained in the metal limb, calculating the speed with which she was able to move – not very fast if she was dragging that weight, but if the arm was hollow, possibly faster than a normal human.

The girl moved the arm as though it were normal and weighed no more than a flesh arm. That was bad – either she was amazingly strong, or the arm was somehow made with a framework that allowed it to be light and stong at the same time, which was more probable; the flexible components in her metal fingers must be amazing – and eerily quiet.

On any other day, Peter would have loved to look at it, take it apart, make some adjustments so she could use it better – even from this distance he could see the slight stiffness in her elbow that seemed to bother her every minute or so. A weakness? - No. She would have been trained to treat the stiffness as an advantage, easier to lock the joint for stability, if she was hanging over a drop, but harder to pull herself up again.

_Old tech, _he thought. _HYDRA tech, yes, alien tech, yes, advanced tech, definitely yes, but well-maintained tech – not so much. _

Peter had a sudden and utterly bizarre image of the Tin Man from _The Wizard of Oz_, which he'd read in primary school. Only this Tin Woman wasn't just missing a heart – her head as well. No memories, no nothing. Just unfailing loyalty to one person – Thanos, or as Peter would now call him, Oz the Great and Terrible. Thanos was certainly both.

Thanos could at least have made Emma better, if not fully human.

As he watched, scrutinising her, she flicked her red hair impatiently out of her face and reached up to touch the metal side of her head. She was pretty in a cyborg/Natasha way, he decided, and, if she was anything like Natasha, he was staying well away, preferably on the next available exoplanet.

Thanos was the more pressing problem.

For the moment.

* * *

"Emma, choose one of these," Thanos indicated the Guardians, Tony, Peter, and Stephen like they were a buffet, "And kill one of them. I don't care which, but he's," he pointed at Tony, who was prepping his suit for the possible battle, "a challenge, persistent although not powerful and uses nanotechnology, and the young lady on the left," Mantis raised her head, scowling, "is the easiest prey. And a quick kill, if you would, Emma. Use your ability this time. No sense in prolonging suffering."

"No," Emma agreed, "We are not all like Maw."

"Emma." Thanos prompted. "Choose."

Emma surveyed the various humanoids arrayed in front of her, most of them spoiling for a fight. "Him," she said, pointing at Peter.

Peter looked at Tony. For the first time, the man was looking scared. Peter took a step forwards, biting his lip.

He had the most idiotic thought spinning inside his head, over and over again – _He didn't want to hurt her. _It sounded like something a knight from a fairy tale might say, as he confronts a female hero, and, three seconds later, becomes a perfect example of how to get beheaded with minimum blood spills.

Unfortunately, Peter knew that Emma had no such qualms in regard to hurting _him_.

* * *

Emma laughed as the boy scuttled up the vertical wall like a spider – ha, Spider-Boy. Tony had used the word once – Emma knew that she shouldn't know that, but that was Thanos for you – always knew what was going on.

_Spider-Ling, Spider-Boy, Spider-Man. _

Emma laughed again, under her breath. She found a foothold and began climbing, using ledges and protruding pieces of dead, rusted machine. She backflipped up the side, grabbing onto a spar of metal and letting herself swing to stop.

The boy was on the other side of the machine, she could sense him. Summoning her ability, she willed the atoms in the skeleton of the machine to disintegrate, sending the boy tumbling away into the abyss that surrounded the derelict, towering machinery.

At exactly the same time, she backflipped away from the disintegrating wreck onto a second machine skeleton, grasping onto it and locking her metal elbow and shoulder before, with a low grunt of effort, she pulled herself up onto a ledge that had once been a now-rusted and protruding cog.

She saw the boy falling, white webs trailing from his fingers, ready to stick to any available surface that might save him. Emma then reached for the atoms in the webs and made them disband, sending bits of web flying uselessly everywhere, losing all the strength and stretch that the various compounds in the fluid had given them.

The boy hit the ground with the unmistakeable _crack _of multiple bones breaking, echoing all the way up to where Emma sat, her legs firmly hooked around the massive, lethal-looking teeth of the rusted cog.

The boy's hand moved feebly, then went limp.

His brown eyes misted over.

Then he was still.

* * *

"Peter!" Tony shouted, even though he knew that the boy couldn't hear him. Thanos gave him a smile that reflected all the hate that Tony was feeling, and blue portal light formed around him and Emma, who had just climbed back to the ground. It flickered and faded into the murky Titan light.

Emma was also smiling, satisfied with a death well done.

"Now," Thanos said, his deep voice reverberating over the mountains of scrap metal and machinery, "If you want to survive being killed by my daughter," Emma smiled to show that the 'daughter' was her, and Tony swore again, "give me the Time Stone."

Stephen gave a derisive laugh. "That's going to happen."

"Yes." Thanos agreed, "It will."

"Does you know what sarcasm is?" Tony said, incredulous.

Emma, still smiling, stepped forwards. "I know what it is -" Tony sighed in relief, saying that 'at least one of their enemies was educated properly', "- and I _hate_ it." The dislike in her voice – sarcasm meant disrespect, mocking the speaker – was almost tangible.

There was a knife in her hand, sudden and sharp, winking in the dusty light of Titan. There was barely a second to register the movement, then the blade was sticking out from between two of Tony's ribs, straight out of the metal of his suit.

Tony gasped in surprise and pain. His knees buckled so that he was kneeling before Emma, as though he were submitting to death.

Thanos smiled. "Now you will give me the Time Stone if you wish to save your friend."

Stephen gulped, his hands flying to the necklace that hung to his chest, concealing the bright green eye of the Time Stone. "Tony?"

"Don't give it to him," Tony whispered. "Don't do it, Strange."

Stephen stared at the bleeding wound.

"You can save him," Thanos said. "I will save him if you give me the Stone."

Emma twisted the knife. Tony moaned and his knees buckled a little more so that he nearly fell, forcing him to throw out an arm to steady himself. Blood ran down the metal of his suit, as red as the metal.

"Strange -" Tony managed, then Emma twisted the knife again and he moaned in pain. Emma pulled a second knife from her belt and cut away the metal that encased Tony's left shoulder, the knife burning a path through the metal. She began to carve a shape into his flesh and he screamed.

Stephen's hands moved and the shining green of the Time Stone shifted into view.

"A fake," Thanos said dismissively, "A silly fake. _Emma._" He didn't look at her, just said her name, and Emma understood immediately.

On the ground, blood streaming from his shoulder, Tony screamed again.

"Mr Strange." Emma looked up at him. "Just give my father the Stone like a good boy, and this unpleasantness -" Tony screamed for a third time, and blood spattered the ground, "- will all be over."

"It's Doctor, actually."

"Doctor Strange, then. Give my father the Stone."

"Strange -" Tony looked like he was on the edge of unconsciousness. "And you," Emma snarled, "can be quiet." She backhanded him across the face with her metal hand, and his nose broke with a wet _snap_, sending blood trickling down Tony's face and onto the ground, soaking into the dirt. He sagged onto the ground, definitely unconscious now.

"He's in pain," Mantis whispered, as though that wasn't obvious. "He's unconscious, but still hurting. She's hurting him. Please, Stephen, we have to save him. He can't survive for long in this state." She gestured to what Emma had carved into Tony's shoulder in large, jagged, angry letters that trickled blood over his skin: _THIS IS PAIN._

Stephen moved his hands again, and a second Stone appeared in his hand, glowing a brighter green than the first. He offered it to Thanos, who snatched it up greedily.

The Time Stone moved in his fingers as he brought it closer to the Infinity Gauntlet, as though it were magnetically attracted to the rest of its fellow Stones.

It dropped into the waiting hole and spread green light over the Gauntlet. Thanos gestured to Tony, and green light flickered around the fallen man. Tony's shoulder and the wound in his ribs healed. His broken nose straightened and healed with a _snap-click _sound. He began to breathe easier again.

Emma gave him a kick in the ribs for good measure.

Stephen looked down at his empty hands as though he was just realising what he had done, what he'd set in motion.

Blue portal light flickered around Emma and Thanos, imploding in a blue-black hole. Emma was cleaning the blood off her hands with complete nonchalance as she waited for the Space Stone to do its work.

They vanished.

* * *

King T'Challa saw the army of four-armed, snarling, razor-toothed creatures that were rapidly gathering outside the barrier of blue light like clouds massing before a storm, ready to annihilate the country within.

The creatures began to tear at the barrier, tearing themselves apart in the process, scratching and clawing at it, creating holes and struggling halfway through them only to have the holes suddenly close and cleave them in two. But the sheer number of creatures were prevailing – more and more began to get through the barrier either whole or with only minor injuries. They snarled at the massed ranks of the Wakandans, which immediately bristled with spears and other weapons.

On T'Challa's right, Okoye led the Dora Milaje (the group of all-female fighters who defended the throne and the country) and on his left were a few of the Avengers and less of the Guardians.

There was Steve, now with a smaller black shield on each forearm, Bucky with his ever-present gun, and Bruce in a huge red-and-gold Iron Man suit; Colonel Rhodes, a.k.a. War Machine, all suited up, guns and grenades and whatever else Tony had packed into his suit (quite possibly rocket launchers) primed, Sam with his Falcon wings at the ready, and Natasha, as beautiful (she'd dyed her hair pale blonde) and deadly as ever.

From the partly-absent Guardians, there was Rocket the crazy racoon-human-thing, who was toting a gun even larger and more lethal-looking than Bucky's, and Groot, a teenage tree-like humanoid with a bad attitude that seemed to have a videogame glued to its fingers the entire time and had a voice which was either low and gruff or ear-splittingly high; somewhere in the vicinity of 'breaking', if that could apply to a plant. The tree appeared to be capable of only saying three words: "I am Groot!".

T'Challa also knew that Wanda and Vision were working with his younger sister Shuri to try to destroy the Mind Stone and save the android's mind at the same time; Shuri, an expert with tech and at manipulating precious Vibranium as well as ordinary metals, would be able to do it. Of course she would.

T'Challa didn't want to think about what might happen if Shuri failed.

Meanwhile, while she was working, it was his job to stop Thanos and his army getting to the Stone before it was destroyed.

He didn't want to think about how many lives would be lost in this battle.

From his suit's head, Bruce yelled: "This is awesome! It's like being the Hulk without actually being the Hulk!" Bruce sounded like a little kid with a new toy. With one massive metal fist, he punched one of the creatures straight back through the barrier, where it stuck halfway through and was sliced in half by the now-closed hole in the blue light.

More of the creatures began to push through the barrier. Soon the ground was littered with dismembered and mutilated bodies, some still snapping and attempting to bite even in death – were they like snakes, T'Challa thought, that kept moving even after their heads had been severed?

Thanos was a snake – always moving, always planning, always plotting.

Next to him, Okoye, knowing that the creatures would get through eventually, said: "My king, we have no choice. We must open the barrier."

T'Challa knew that she was right.

"Open the barrier!" he called.

The shield of blue light split cleanly down the middle, and the creatures poured through it in a rushing tide of teeth and blood and death.

"Wakanda forever!" T'Challa cried, and the rest of the army repeated the shout of defiance and charged after him.

* * *

Emma looked at the unfolding battle, Wakandans and creatures as the Avengers, Guardians and the Black Order spiritedly attempted to kill one another, disappointed that she couldn't play a larger part. The battle would have been over a lot faster had she been allowed to contribute to it. But her mission briefing had been clear – stay where you are. Protect your father. Protect the Gauntlet. Kill anyone who tries to take it.

"Emma," Thanos said, his voice soft, "Emma, people are coming."

"The Avengers?"

"And a few of their friends."

"Indeed."

Emma listened to the many sets of footsteps trudging through the forest. "How many will I be able to take? I know that the Soldier, Captain, Okoye, Widow, and Panther are here and waiting. How many more will abandon the battle, Father? How many will come for us?" For the first time, Emma sounded scared.

Thanos gestured to Emma's hands. "You have power enough, Emma. Make their atoms turn to ashes for me."

Emma nodded. She felt a knife slide into her hand – a silver bar, painstakingly engraved and decorated with red jewels, and with two short blades protruding from each end.

"Perfectly balanced." she whispered.

"Yes, my dear. Kill them with it, not just your ordinary ones. Do that for me, will you?"

"Of course, Father. Anything for family." Emma grinned like a cat, predatory and perfect, the ends of her hair lifting a little in the breeze. She touched the red star that was emblazoned on her metal shoulder. "After all, blood is thicker than water."

She threw the knife as the first adversary erupted from the bushes. Natasha dodged and backflipped over a fallen tree. Emma concentrated, and Natasha's skin turned grey and a little cracked. It had turned to stone.

Emma dodged the spear that Okoye threw at her head and threw out an arm. Atoms bunched around her fingers, becoming thick clumps of metal, heavy and strong. One of them caught Okoye on the side of the head and she collapsed, bleeding, unconscious and maybe dead.

Emma felt the presence of the rest of them – atoms that sent out distinctive heat signatures that betrayed where they were. She pulled a knife from her belt – the same one with which she'd nearly killed Tony – and threw it. There was a thump as a body hit the ground, and a carbon-fibre wing protruded from the long grass. Blood trickled between the boning in the wing and pooled onto the ground.

_Falcon. Not a bad kill._ Emma backflipped again to avoid a spray of bullets from a long-haired man with – and suddenly everything froze.

A _metal arm. _

The man had a metal arm with a red star emblazoned on his upper arm. Then Nebula's words floated into her head: _You will never remember anything, and neither will I. _Emma completed the backflip, landing on her feet and sending a barrage of stone towards him. He was knocked onto his back and the stones trapped him on the ground. Emma solidified them with a look.

"Steve!" the man yelled, struggling. "Steve!"

Steve's head turned, and Emma took advantage of the movement and thickened the air density around him so that it was like treacle.

He moved slowly, shields raised. When he spoke, Steve's voice had too much reverb, the words elongated. "Buck...y...".

She punched him. His nose broke with a satisfying _snap_. She hit him again with her metal fist, in the ribs this time. More than one broke and Steve stumbled back, falling. Emma trapped him using stone, much like the long-haired man (_Bucky? _Where had she heard that name before?) and left him.

The tree-like creature was torn apart and left in bits of cellulose on the ground.

Emma split the armour of Bruce's Iron Man suit, making it disintegrate into grey dust that danced in the breeze. She compressed the remaining armour into a metal cocoon, almost choking him, using her ability to throw the metal cocoon so that it broke against the cliff and left Bruce lying at its foot, on his back, barely breathing.

Emma relaxed, going to stand by Thanos again, who hadn't moved.

"Did I do well, Father?"

He smiled. "Of course you di-"

Then an axe blade entered his chest and lodged there. A bolt of lightning tore through the sky as thunderclouds gathered and darkened. A blond-haired, armoured man – Emma knew him from Thanos's information as _Thor_, and that Thanos had killed his brother Loki, but there was nothing in her memory about him – hit the ground on his feet, lightning crackling around him, turning his eyes pure white with concentrated electrical energy.

"I said," he growled, "you would die for that."

Thanos's face contorted in pain. Emma screamed as blood ran down her father's chest, as his eyes widened in shock.

"FATHER! Father, no, please -"

Thor turned to her. "Get out of here, girl. Run while you can."

Thanos was breathing fast and shallow. "Don't run, Emma. Don't - aah!" Thor had pushed the axe blade in deeper, and blood trickled in red streams from the rent in Thanos's golden armour.

The Infinity Gauntlet glowed with rainbow colours. "Come to me," Thanos whispered. He seemed to be talking to himself. Then there was a young woman's scream:

"Vision! No, Vision, please, please -"

An orange Infinity Stone flew through the air towards Thanos. He stretched out his hand towards it, smiling, blood staining his teeth. "Come to me," he whispered.

Thor took the axe's handle and drove it deeper into Thanos's chest. The Titan groaned in pain, Gauntlet-clad fingers stretching -

The edge of the axe protruded from his back. His eyes rolled and he collapsed to his knees in the leaves. "No!" Emma screamed again. She knelt beside him, lowered him to the ground as gently as was possible for a seven-foot Titan and a girl of only average height.

"Father," she whispered, "Father, please, stay with me, please don't leave me here -"

"Emma," Thanos rasped. He held up his hand. The Gauntlet was gone.

Suddenly Emma screamed again, in real pain this time. Light surrounded her, red, green, blue, gold, orange, and purple, swirling around her hand and in her eyes.

The golden Infinity Gauntlet – shrunk to fit her hand, the Stones smaller as well – was on her left hand, not the metal one.

Then the light vanished. Emma stared at her fingers. "Father..."

Thanos smiled again. "Just snap your fingers, Emma. Just one little movement, and it'll all be over, all this pain, all this death... and my quest will finally be completed and I can rest at last. Please... for me."

"Father... I don't know if I'm strong enough... I'm just a girl."

"Emma, please. You are strong enough, you have always been the strongest, and the strong survive. Just snap your fingers. Trust me. You can. Just snap your fingers."

* * *

**Oooh! What's going to happen? Please ****review! Katie Trillion xx**


	3. Chapter 3: The End

Infinity War: **T****HE END**

* * *

Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup  
You wanted to

I don't think you trust  
In my self-righteous suicide  
I cry when angels deserve to die, die

Wake up

(_Chop Suey _by System of a Down)

* * *

'_[Her] mind was like a broken mirror; something brilliant, sharp, and dazzling, but also fundamentally and irrevocably broken._' - _Hogfather,_ by Terry Pratchett.

* * *

Thanos smiled again. Blood stained his teeth. "Just snap your fingers, Emma. Just one little movement, and it'll all be over, all this pain, all this death... and my quest will finally be complete, and I will be able to rest at last... in peace. Please... for me."

"Father... I don't know if I'm strong enough... I'm just a teenage girl. I'm not like you."

"Emma, please. You are strong enough, you have always been the strongest, and the strong survive Just snap your fingers. Trust me. You can. Just snap your fingers."

Emma looked at the Gauntlet, the light of the Stones dancing in her one eye and reflecting off the metal part of her face.

"Emma!" Bucky yelled, "Emma, don't!"

Emma looked at him, her one eye flashing in anger. Light from the Stones still flickered around her. She reached out for the atoms and turned the grey stone that trapped him to solid metal in the space of a moment.

"Do you want to know how dead you will be in a few seconds if you don't shut up?"

Bucky shut up.

Emma released the trapped Avengers, all except Bruce, who was unconscious. She wanted them to at least have a chance.

"Don't listen to him, Emma." Thanos was still bleeding, the light in his eyes going out, ever so slowly. "Please. Just -"

He didn't have to complete his sentence.

Emma stared at the half-melted Gauntlet and the drifting dust that swirled around her – the dust that had once been people.

She pulled the thing off her hand, disgusted at touching it now. Thanos, still bleeding, looked at her. "Help me, Emma."

She pulled the axe blade out of his chest – he cried out in pain – and the wound and the rent in his golden armour closed over at her touch. He stood up, holding the destroyed Gauntlet in one hand. He reached out and pulled Emma's head back.

"Don't move, little one." He pulled the Soul Stone out of the Gauntlet and pressed it into Emma's forehead. Emma screamed, pain flooding her limbs. Yellow-gold light poured from the place where the Stone had entered her skin and fused there. She fell to her knees, jerking her head out of Thanos's grip.

"What have you done?" she screamed at him. "What have you done to me?"

Her metal arm was shuddering, half-melted and re-forming at the same time. Instead of the silver of Bucky's arm, Emma's was now the bright gold of a sunset, the HYDRA star bone-white. Then the metal flickered back to silver and red, the star covered in blood.

Thanos, impassive, looked down at her as tears began to leak from the corner of her one normal eye.

"What have you done to me?" she said again, her voice a soft whisper now.

"Made you more than human," he said simply. "Made you like me."

And he walked away, leaving kneeling, weeping girl and the pulsing golden Infinity Stone in the forest.

* * *

_Wanda was flying. _

_That was all she felt – the sensation of air rushing past her, her hair whipping her face, red light shining at the tips of her fingers. She soared over the peak of a mountain, feeling the clouds – ice-white and swamping the mountain so that only the peak could be seen – brush her feet. She felt deliriously happy, here, alone. The sky was her companion, and it followed her, racing with her, blazing gold with the sinking sun. _

_Wanda was happy. Pure elation throbbed in her veins. _

_But somewhere very far away, in the back of her mind, there was pain. Lurking behind the peace was grief. _

_Then the image of a red-haired girl burst into her head. The girl was kneeling on a forest floor, her hair covering her face, one of her arms made of golden metal; then her arm seemed to flicker, the metal switching to silver. _

_The girl looked up. She was crying, that was obvious, but the most striking part of her appearance with the yellow-gold stone that was set into her forehead. _

_Wanda alighted on the mountain peak, still staring into the girl's eyes. "Emma?" she whispered. _

"_Wanda," Emma said, "Wanda, help me. Please help me."_

_Wanda felt a surge of anger towards the girl. This was her fault, all her fault. _

"_No." she said. _

_And the girl began to scream._

* * *

Steve, catapulted back into the disintegrating battle by the release of energy from the Gauntlet, found her, still kneeling, scrabbling at the Infinity Stone in her forehead and with tears crowding her eyes, waiting to fall.

"Emma - what the -"

"He's gone."

"What?"

"He's gone. The man called Bucky. He's gone."

Steve's eyes widened. "Do you..."

"No. And I'm sorry." Then she winced and her voice changed. "_Sorry isn't going to work, little girl. How about turning back time?_"

Steve took a hurried step back. "W-Wanda?"

Emma screamed again, the Stone in her head glowing. "_Providence. _Director Fury says Providence is still there. And to tell Coulson. Also Skye. He says Skye Johnson can help me... can help all of us."

"C-Coulson survived?"

"He's not here!" Emma snarled at him, gesturing to the Soul Stone. "If he was here, I'd know!"

"Alright, alright. We'll get you to Providence, Emma. Just come with me."

Emma looked at him. Her face was still streaked with tears. "It's my fault, Steve. All my fault. These deaths... and now I'm being punished. They will always be with me."

She paused.

"And they will never stop punishing me for what I did."

* * *

_S.H.I.E.L.D. Base – Providence – somewhere in the Canadian wilderness_

"Emma."

Skye Johnson walked through the door of Emma's room, the floor shaking slightly under her feet. Skye – or 'Quake' as she was also known – could produce waves of vibration akin to earthquakes whenever she wanted and was also gifted with psychic shielding.

"Skye. Don't you go by Daisy these days?"

The older girl smiled. "Always preferred Skye. Short and to the point."

She pulled up a chair and sat down. "I believe that the remainder of S.H.I.E.L.D. has classed you as an 0-8-4. That's basically an alien."

"I'm not really sure if I'm human anymore. My fa- Thanos told me he'd... he'd made me more than human."

Suddenly a voice spoke from the air around the Soul Stone "_And you are, Emma. This is your fault. You killed us._" Emma winced. "I didn't... Nick, please... you're not dead..."

"_This is worse, Emma. This not being dead or alive. And I blame you for so, so much._" The woman's voice was bitter. Wanda.

"Wanda," Skye said, "I'd like to talk to Emma, please. Give it a rest for just five minutes."

Wanda stopped talking. "But she's right," Emma was crying again, "I could have said no, I could have stopped all this..."

"_But you didn't._" Nick again. Then a younger girl's voice, oddly accented and petulant, spoke: "_I can't even work on your suit, brother, and I had a new design and everything._" It was Shuri, the young Wakandan girl, T'Challa's sister. "_It's fine, Shuri. We'll get out of here and then we can keep working on the suit._" T'Challa's voice.

The voices didn't use Emma's mouth exactly. They seemed to emanate from the Soul Stone, interrupting and judging whenever they chose. "_I am Groot!_"

"Shut up, the lot of you!" Skye shouted. The floor under her feet vibrated angrily. The voices shut up immediately.

"Thanks, Skye." Emma suddenly looked very tired. "Sorry. No sleep. Everybody's talking, always talking, banter and insults and arguments and acting like... like teenagers that have been forced to share the same room! Then they remember that I'm the one that caused all this and they hurt me... so. No sleep."

"Oh, Emma..." Skye looked at her with pity in her eyes.

"_Don't pity her. Pity us. We're the ones she trapped._" Wanda again. A moan of pain escaped Emma's lips.

"Stop!" The floor shook. Skye was glaring at the Soul Stone. "Stop hurting her! She didn't know what she was doing, Emma was just obeying an order from her 'father'!"

"_She could have said no! She admits it!_" Nick, shouting, voice heated with anger. Then a different voice interrupted – deep, male and familiar.

"_Fury. Stop blaming her. I know about being brainwashed. She wouldn't have been able to help it. Agreeing is... almost instinctive when it gets to that point._" Emma gasped. "Bucky... you've never spoken to me before... why didn't you say anything?"

"_It took me a while to find you. The Soul World is... disorientating, to say the least. It dredges up old memories..._" His voice trailed off.

Skye, looking a little lost, said: "Wait a sec. How many people are here?"

"Everybody who disintegrated. Humans, heroes, civilians, Wakandans, people who don't look human and don't speak English. Aliens. I hear them sometimes, but I can't understand. There are so many people, from so many worlds, but only a few of them talk. Only a few are strong enough... the rest are lost."

"Lost?"

"The Soul World has no maps. There is no map for where they go to."

The door opened. Agent Phil Coulson poked his head round it. He was looking tired and weather-beaten, his suit not quite as immaculate as usual.

"Coulson?" Skye asked. "What is it?"

"Nebula wants to talk to Gamora, if she's here." He looked at Emma, as though she should recognise him. Emma did not.

"_I'm here._" Gamora's voice echoed around the room.

"I'll just fetch her, then. Nebula! Gamora's here!" he shouted.

Nebula, sulky as ever, her eyes not red from not crying, emotionless apart from the ever-present scowl, sauntered inside.

"Skye. Out. Coulson. Out."

Skye and Coulson obeyed instantly. Emma got the feeling that they were a little scared of the cyborg woman.

"Gamora?" Nebula asked, a little hesitantly.

"_Nebula. I can see you through her eyes. Can you see me?_"

Nebula looked like she was about to cry. "No. I can hear you, but I can't see you. Where are you, Gamora?"

"_The Soul World. A very long way away._"

Nebula looked at Emma. "Can I see her?"

"I don't know." Emma knew that Gamora was slipping away, being lost in the Soul World, but she couldn't bear to tell Nebula.

"_Goodbye, Nebula._"

"Gamora - Gamora, wait, please -"

But she was gone.

* * *

_Bucky was sitting at the edge of a lake. Sunlight rippled across the water as the sun sank below the horizon._

_It always seemed to be sunset here. _

"_Bucky?"_

_He stood and turned around. Gamora was standing behind him. Her skin, instead of its healthy bright green, was grey. _

"_Gamora - what -"_

_She was fading away, being lost, fading into the sunset. "Nebula..." she whispered, just before she was lost entirely. _

_Now alone again, Bucky watched the sinking sun for a while, its light turning the water in the lake yellow-gold. _

_Everything seemed to blur for a second, then he pulled himself together – literally. He felt like he was going to fall apart at any second. _

_They were all fading away from here. Soon they would be lost. _

_Bucky looked up. Walking across the water was Emma, the Soul Stone in her forehead glowing, the golden light mimicking the sun, only brighter. She stepped down onto the shore of the lake. _

"_Emma," Bucky said urgently, "Gamora's gone. She faded. Please – you have to help us before we all fade away."_

_Emma was crying quietly. "I don't know how. I don't know how to help you. And- And I still can't remember who you are, Bucky. I know your name and your face and the red star on your arm, but nothing else."_

_Emma looked at the ground, tears glittering in her eyes. "I think – if you want anything – I can alter what you see. This world is... in a way... mine. My world." Her brow furrowed, then two deckchairs appeared on the shore – plain white fabric that was coloured amber by the light of the setting sun. _

"_Wow," Bucky muttered grudgingly. _

"_Sit down." They did. _

_There was a slightly awkward silence. _

"_You don't remember me? Not a thing beyond what you just said?"_

_Emma closed her eyes. Blurred images danced in her mind. Blood. Pain. Screaming,_

"_I'm sorry. I-I think... in Sokovia... you..."_

_Bucky remembered the vicious predatory pleasure of the whipping. "I'm sorry. That wasn't me – that was HYDRA. Emma – what I did – please believe me, I am so, so sorry."_

"_I know. I'm sorry as well. Just... don't fade away, Bucky. Please. Tell the others what I told you. Stay here."_

_Her image flickered and vanished. _

_Bucky returned to staring out at the sunset._

* * *

"Emma?"

Emma jerked, reality rushing back. "N-Nebula? What -"

"You zoned out for a bit. Are you okay?"

"Y-Yes." Emma didn't want to say that Gamora wouldn't be coming back.

Nebula wiped her right eye irritably – had she been crying?

"Can I speak to Gamora again?"

"_She won't be coming back, I'm afraid._" Nick Fury's voice, blunt as ever.

"_Nick! Why did you have to tell her like that?_" A woman's voice, exasperated. Emma knew that she was Agent Maria Hill.

Nebula stumbled backwards. "N-No. No, no, no, she can't not be gone permanently – that can't happen!"

Then a man's voice – not Nick this time – spoke, panic-stricken. "_Gamora? Gamora, where are you? Gamora?_"

"I'm sorry, Mr Quill." Emma said, her voice sorrowful and sincere, an apology that was too small to atone for what had happened. "Listen to the director."

"_B-But – she can't have-_" Peter Quill sounded on the edge of tears. "_She wouldn't have left me here... without her._"

"It wasn't her choice to make. It's random, I think. Like -"

Peter's voice was suddenly full of anger. "_Like the Snap? Yes, exactly like the Snap – all your fault!_"

Emma screamed. The Soul Stone pulsed gold, and golden light flickered at the ends of her hair, at the tips of her fingers and through her veins, so that her face, wrists and hands were momentarily laced with golden lines. "Peter - Peter, please, listen to me -"

"_It was your fault!_" Peter yelled. "_All of it was your fault!_"

Emma was clutching her head, golden light flickering all over her body. "Bucky!" she screamed. "Bucky, help me – please help me -"

"_Quill! Stop hurting her, now! Stop this!_"

"_It's her fault!_" Peter was really crying now, they could hear it, the broken sobbing echoing through the room. "_Can't you see that it's her fault? She snapped her fingers – she caused it all -_"

"_As I've already explained, she'd been brainwashed! She couldn't have disagreed!_"

"_Hey, wait -_" different voice, young, male, late teens maybe, "_How does this brainwashing thing work? I mean, what's the technology?_" There was a slight pause as everybody adjusted to the new arrival. After a few seconds, the boy seemed to remember that he'd been talking a moment ago. "_Oh. Um. Hi, everybody. Guess you didn't notice me before. I'm Peter. Parker. Um. Anyway, Mr Barnes, sir, what's the technology?_"

"_Are you seriously taking notes, Parker?_" Fury's voice, scathing.

"_You shut up!_" New voice – teenage girl, American, and very angry.

Peter's voice was suddenly shocked. "_MJ? What the – oh God, don't tell me it got you as well – oh God..._"

"_I'm sorry, Peter._" There was a short pause, then MJ sniffed and launched into the anecdote, alternately sniffing when she didn't want to show that she was crying. "_We were having dinner when it happened – Mum and me. The photograph of Dad looked alive again. It felt like..._" MJ sniffed, "_he was there again. Not in prison like he is now. Or here. I know he's not here._" She paused. "_So we were sitting at the table, my mum and me, eating, talking about school, work, how both our days went, just like we normally do. Then I felt a bit sick. Mum told me to drink some water. I was just turning the tap on when it happened._"

"_Oh, MJ..._" Peter sounded like MJ – like he was crying.

"_Quit being sentimental!_" Nick snarled. "_Any of us could fade at any... oh, s**t..._"

"_Nick!_" Maria screamed. "_Nick, oh my god, oh my god, Nick!_"

"He's gone." Emma said. "He's just... gone."

Peter Quill suddenly returned to the conversation. "_For God's sake, just kill her, then we can get out of here!_"

Bucky, with utter, unbelievable self-control, said: "_Be quiet, Quill. The adults are talking._"

Under the cover of Quill's splutter of indignation, the conversation resumed.

"_So how are we going to get out of here, bar killing Emma, which probably won't work anyway?_" Maria had apparently recovered a little from the shock of Nick fading.

"_Well, you're the S.H.I.E.L.D. people, so why don't you work it out, and screw us up, as always?_" MJ's voice was so sarcastic they could almost _hear_ her crossing her arms in anger and annoyance.

"_We don't screw up, the _world _screws up,_" Maria countered. "_We try the best we can._"

MJ made hissed like an angry cat. "_The best you can? That's nothing._"

"Just stop arguing," Emma said, exasperated. "It's not going to do any good."

"_She's right,_" Peter said, calming MJ. "_It won't do any good._"

* * *

_Peter was standing in his room. His favourite place. _

_Everything was very quiet and very still. The Lego Death Star that he and Ned had built was teetering on the edge of his desk, just on the cusp of falling. _

_But it wasn't. It wasn't falling. _

_Balanced._

_Birds – starlings, their oil-slick-coloured wings glimmering in the sunset, were flying in to roost, clear-cut black silhouettes against the flaming orange sky. They rested along telephone wires, proud sentinels against the night. _

_Streetlamps were just flickering on, illuminating the empty street._

_The wind whispered in the trees, making leaves rustle and tumble over the pavement in crowds of curled, dead cellulose. _

_Perfect. _

_Peter could see the orange glow of the sunset from his window, odd for Queens. For once there were no cars to interrupt the peace. _

"_Hello, Peter."_

_Peter nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned. "It's you."_  
_Emma nodded a greeting. "It's me."_

_Peter suddenly felt very scared. "Don't kill me again."_

"_I..."_

"_It's alright."_

"_It's not! It's not, it's not, I killed you, I watched you falling -" Emma pulled a knife from her belt and slashed a long cut into her arm. Ruby blood dripped over her fingers. _

"_Don't do that to yourself!" Peter half-shouted. _

"_Why not?" she yelled right back. "How did you get here anyway? You didn't disintegrate like the others."_

"_I don't know. I just remember being dragged out of somewhere very dark... and your voice, saying: 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' over and over again."_

_Emma thought about this. Outside the window, the birds skittered and fluttered, clutching onto the telephone wires with clawed feet. Night was coming. _

"_I must have been thinking of you," Emma said, "as I snapped my fingers. I must have imagined you here, safe, where no one could ever hurt you again... because I laughed as you died, and I know that I hurt you. I... I'm sorry."_

_Peter smiled shakily. "It's alright. I'm still not technically dead."_

_Emma was cleaning the blood off her arm and not looking at him. The Soul Stone pulsed and glowed in the silence. _

"_But you could... you know... fade away."_

"_I won't. Not while MJ's here. I would never leave her."_

_Emma smiled softly. "I know."_

_She paused. _

"_It's a funny thing, love, isn't it? I killed the man I loved... again, without meaning to... but he's dead. And that's what matters."_

_Her metal fist clenched. She turned alarmingly quickly and punched right though Peter's wall, scattering plaster dust everywhere._

_Outside, instead of the sunset and the view of Queens, there was just formless grey mist, curling around the room, whispering things as its insubstantial arms reached through the hole, reaching for Emma. _

"_See?" she said. "It's not real; none of it is. But somehow it also has an effect on the corporeal world. Strange, isn't it?"_

_Peter nodded. He touched the twisting tendrils of mist hesitantly. "What is it?"_

"_I don't know."_

_Peter took a step back as an image of his Aunt May sitting at a table, weeping and looking as though she hadn't slept in a fortnight. The dinner table was set for two, but only May was there. Peter felt tears sting his eyes. She was trying to make it as though he was not dead, as if he hadn't died on Titan._

"_Can you take me back to her?"_

"_I don't know my full extent of control over the world."_

* * *

Emma had bandaged the cut on her arm, although she could have just healed it like she would any other wound – will the atoms and molecules to heal – but she didn't.

This one was almost special.

Now, Emma was asleep.

She appeared to be asleep.

But in her mind and in the Soul World, utter turmoil raged.

* * *

_The inhabitants of the Soul World – everybody who blamed her for their situation – had dragged her up the hill (where had the hill come from?) and they had crucified her, nailed her through her normal hand and cuffed the metal one to the wooden cross. _

_Then every single one of the thousands that were there – from different worlds and strange galaxies – had come and... paid their respects. _

_Only a few refused to hurt her. _

_Six people – humanoids – hung back, at the bottom of the hill, and watched. Bucky, Peter, MJ, Shuri, T'Challa, Groot, and Stephen Strange._

_Now they had to listen to her screams, which slowly turned to sobbing, pleading, begging... then silence. _

_The silence was the worst part. _

_Emma was near-limp on the cross, her chin resting on her chest, blooding running down from her mouth – two, maybe three broken ribs, Stephen wondered – then he immediately stopped wondering as what else could be internally injured could be life-threatening, and Quill had broken one of her legs early on, followed by what seemed to be a gunshot wound to her left shoulder, not to mention the trauma her mind had suffered. _

_Blood covered the ground. Emma's mind had been virtually ripped apart. _

_Wanda was the first to hurt her, smiling as she reached into the girl's already-traumatised mind and made her feel everything Wanda had felt – the grief, the anger, the pain of Pietro's death in Sokovia, the terror and denial of Vision dying before her eyes, the Mind Stone ripped from his forehead, the pain that she could now redouble with her ability. _

"_Wanda -" _

_Wanda's eyes glowed scarlet with her psionic ability. Emma screamed again, convulsing on the cross, splinters digging into her back. _

"_Wanda, please -"_

_The Sokovian woman didn't listen; all of her hate and pain and rage were focused on Emma, all of her soul blaming the girl for what had happened. In a way, she was right. It was Emma's fault. _

_Red light curled around Emma's body. The girl screamed again, both in physical and emotional torment. Her broken leg, ribs, and probably-broken shoulder were pulsing in agony, but that was nothing – nothing at all – compared to what was going on in her mind; a flashing sequence of mental images, scenes, emotions and all hell, everything she'd done that had hurt other people – and for the first time in her short life, she was seeing it from the other person's perspective._

_She felt Wanda and Peter's combined grief and fear and anger, then she went back further in time, to when Pietro had died... she felt his pain as the knife entered his back... the cold concrete underneath him as fell back, limp... Wanda's scream of grief..._

_And the Sokovian woman's ability brought back older memories still, memories of HYDRA that had been demolished by the brainwashing..._

* * *

_A very small girl, maybe five or six years old, cradled by a woman in her mid-forties who had Emma's red hair and the girl's skinny frame. The little girl was crying:_  
_"Mummy, what's she going to do?"_

"_I don't know, darling, but she'll snap out of it, I know she will. Emma? Can you hear me?"_

_Emma – no, she was Medea then – was watching them with a soldier's precision, moving so that she could always see the scared little girl and the worried woman. _

_Then the lanky figure of Strucker asked: "Do you know these people, Medea?"_

"_No, sir."_

"_Then what would you do with them, Medea?"_

"_Kill them, sir. They have no practical use."_

_The little girl tugged on her mother's sleeve and said "She won't, Mummy, will she? She's joking, she has to be. She wouldn't..."_

_Then Medea's hand went to her knives. She moved with deadly accuracy, and blood spattered across the floor as her mother fell to her knees, blood trailing from her slit throat. _

"_Mummy!" The little girl screamed as Medea advanced on her, bloody knives elegant and shining in the light from the single lamp. _

_Medea stopped. The little girl sobbed, the sound loud in the lifeless silence. _

"_Emma - Emma, please – Muh-Muh-Mummy!" _

"_No." Medea said. _

"_No?" Strucker looked baffled, as though she had just stabbed him and he couldn't work out what had happened. _

"_No. I will not kill her, sir."_

"_Fine." Strucker said, shrugging. He pulled a gun from somewhere. There was a bang, a single shot, and the girl slumped next to her mother, blood trickling from the gunshot wound in her head and mingling with the dead woman's. _

_Strucker looked satisfied. "Medea. You should not have disobeyed."_

_Medea hung her head. "I know, sir. I'm sorry."_

"_Good. Don't do it again."_

"_I won't, sir."_

_Strucker reached up, pulling a whip from the ceiling. It had been hanging there like a python from a tree branch, waiting to slither down and bite. _

"_Are you sure?"_

_Medea backed away from him until her back was pressed against the wall. _

"_No! No, sir, please -"_

"_Too late, my girl, too late."_

* * *

"_Wanda, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." _

"_That won't work. Apologising won't replace them, Medea."_

_Quill broke her other leg. The vicious angry pleasure in his eyes was frighteningly like Bucky's as he'd whipped her. Emma screamed, wrenching at the nail in her normal hand that kept her on the cross - _

_Emma broke. She snapped. The conflicting memories – the ones that were real, the terrible blankness of HYDRA, the ones Thanos had put there – were gradually driving her over the edge and into insanity. She was clutching at straws now, hanging over the precarious drop into the dark. _

_She screamed at Wanda:_

"_THAT IS NOT MY NAME!"_

_And the Soul World splintered around her and shattered into a million pieces._

* * *

All I believe, Is it a dream?  
That comes crashing down on me?  
All that I own  
Is it just smoke and mirrors?  
I want to believe  
But all that I own  
Is it just smoke and mirrors?

All that I've known, buildings of stone  
Fall to the ground without a sound  
This is my word heart breaker, gatekeeper  
I'm feeling far away, I'm feeling right there  
I'm starting to cave, I'm losing my flame  
I wanted your truth, but I wanted the pain to disappear

Dream maker, life taker

_(Smoke and Mirrors, _by Imagine Dragons)

* * *

If I told you what I was,  
Would you turn your back on me?  
And if I seem dangerous,  
Would you be scared?  
I get the feeling just because,  
Everything I touch isn't dark enough  
If this problem lies in me

I'm only a man with a chamber who's got me,  
I'm taking a stand to escape what's inside me.  
A monster, a monster,  
I've turned into a monster,  
A monster, a monster,  
And it keeps getting stronger

(_Monster, _by Imagine Dragons)

* * *

**Hi, hope you enjoyed the story! Next chapter will be uploaded as soon as possible. Please ****review! Katie Trillion xx**


	4. Chapter 4

Infinity War: **N****O LONGER A GIRL**

* * *

Note: I know what you're going to ask – how could Emma withstand the power of the Soul Stone? She was only human _before _Thanos put it in, and we all know that only a being of great celestial power can control an Infinity Stone. Even now, Emma only has a connection to and command over the Soul World, nothing more! Well this answers it – and beware!

More importantly, we have a guest appearance! Wait until you see who it is! (By the way, this character is an OC that I wrote for Shadowhunters ages ago for a friend (the story is not uploaded yet but if anyone wants to see it, just tell me) so you won't know who it is, sorry.

* * *

When you were here before  
Couldn't look you in the eye  
You're just like an angel  
Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather  
In a beautiful world  
And I wish I was special  
You're so f****** special

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.  
What the hell am I doing here?  
I don't belong here.

I don't care if it hurts  
I want to have control

_Creep_, by Radiohead

**I'm no longer a daughter**

**No longer a girl with dreams**

**No longer with hope**

**I'M A WEAPON**

* * *

Emma felt the scream rising inside her.

She woke up.

Then the pain hit her like a rain of daggers, everywhere, all around her, pulsing from her broken bones and infecting every part of her.

"_You deserve this, little girl. You deserve every bit of pain I went through._"

Emma took a deep breath; she was past begging now. "I know, Wanda."

"_You know? You would never understand -_"

"But I do. Stop denying it, Wanda. I do understand. Ever since 1941, I've understood. We are who we are... but we are similar."

"_You... you killed him, though. How can you say that when you killed him?_"

"Wanda, listen to me. You have to accept it. That wasn't me. That was Medea, Medea all along. Try and kill her, and she'll take you down with her."

Emma felt like crying. "I don't know who I am anymore," she whispered. "It would be better – so much better – if I was dead."

She reached into her chest, finding the atoms of her heart in her mind.

The muscle seemed so fragile now, beating away, fluttering with each beat, keeping her treacherously, agonisingly alive.

She made it stop.

* * *

FRIDAY's screech sounded through the compound. The AI was no longer cool and calm, but purely terrified:

"EMMA'S GONE INTO CARDIAC ARREST!"

Coulson jumped up. Everybody piled into Emma's room, Rhodey lugging a defibrillator along as he ran.

Emma was lying on her back in her bed. She was very still.

A jolt ran through her body.

She did not move.

Another jolt of electricity.

She did not move.

One more.

"Come on, Emma," Coulson muttered, "Please..."

"Wait, let me!" The new woman, Carol, pulled the defibrillator paddles off Emma's skin and placed her hands on Emma's chest. _Thump. _

Emma gasped. She breathed.

"I'll get her down to the sickbay," Carol said. She gathered Emma in her arms and carried her out of the room. Bruce followed her, as he was the doctor.

"Coulson?" Nebula said.

"I'm fine," the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent replied. "Just a few unhappy memories."

He followed Carol and Bruce, watching Emma as though she might break at any second, like she was a porcelain doll.

"It's all over now," Steve said. "We're with her till the end of the line."

* * *

_Emma knows that she is dead. _

_She feels like she is sinking through still water, her limbs heavy and unresponsive, and her are lungs filled with something that is thicker and more cloying than air. _

_Then her vision blurs and she looks down. _

_Emma sees a girl with white-blonde hair and strange, silvery eyes chained to the ground, thick shackles fastened around her wrists and ankles. She's skinny and her eyes are sunk deep in their sockets. The girl is screaming, her voice full of pain and fear, with no coherent words, just a single ululation that fills the empty space around her. _

_Tears fill the girl's eyes, and she begins to beg with someone who isn't there – someone named Alec. It's pitiful to hear, sobbing and pleading, apologising over and over. _

"_Alec - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Alec -" She's crying, her sobs echoing around the empty space. It feels as though there should be someone else there, watching, not helping her._

"_Hey," Emma calls softly. "Can you hear me?"_

_She looks up, startled, maybe a little scared. Jerked out of whatever hallucination she's trapped in, she looks up. _

"_Wh-What?" _

_Emma drifts down, takes her hand, and pulls the girl to her feet like an angel descending from heaven. The girl looks shocked enough for Emma to be one. _

"_Who are you?" Emma asks, as the girl's now-phantom-like feet and hands pass right through the shackles, leaving her solid body limp on the floor. _

"_I-I'm Freya."_

_Freya still clings to Emma's arm, her face very pale. She looks younger than Emma, even though they are the same age. _

"_I'm Emma. Don't look so scared – I'm not here to hurt you." _

_Freya jerks away from her, as though she's scared of being touched by another person just as much as she clung to Emma a few seconds before. _

"_Are - are you sure?"_

_Emma smiles a little at her trembling voice. Freya seems a lot younger than her age. Too young for what is happening to her. _

"_I'm sure."_

_Freya pushes her white-blonde hair out of her eyes. She looks tired, and her cheeks are hollow, marking what she's been through. _

"_Emma... can you take me away from here?"_

"_I-I don't know." Emma pauses. "I'm technically dead, I guess." Emma can feel something creeping up on them – on Freya's solid body that is chained far below._

_Then Emma feels a sharp jerk, a shock through her torso. Her heart, still and cold in her chest, jerks again, trying to beat, trying to bring her back. Something tugs at the edge of her vision, trying to drag her back to consciousness._

_Emma grits her teeth and stays where she is. She will not go back. _

"_Emma? Emma, are you alright?"_

_But Freya is slipping away as well, as someone drags at her solid body on the ground, and her face goes even whiter. She cries out, words tumbling from her lips in a panicky river of syllables: "No! No, please! I-I can't! Emma, Emma, help me, please help -" Then her form fades, travelling back to solid body. _

_Emma can feel the fourth jerk of electricity, stronger than the last three, jerk her heart back into life. The world around her swirls and blurs, the slow, dreamlike feeling vanishing in the wave of sudden fear. _

"_Freya!" she screams, as she feels blankets under her, a woman's hands, pulsing with heat and electricity. _

_Then her world descends into darkness again. _

Sleep,_ her mind murmurs, _sleep and forget.

_Emma feels memories torn away, sharp and hard, purposeful as a surgeon's scalpel, and she forgets Freya, forgets the other girl's pale face, white-blonde hair, and bright silvery eyes, her terrified screams, just like that._

* * *

"How is she?" Coulson asked.

Emma was lying on a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines, with plastic tubes trailing from her skin. There was an oxygen mask over her face and a heart monitor beeping regularly and reassuringly next to her.

"Still not conscious, poor kid," Bruce said, and looked at the readouts on the machines. "We don't know about residual trauma either. Or if she's going to wake up at all."

"_I can help her,_" Wanda's voice made both men jump. "_I can bring her back. She is in no pain and there is no... residual trauma. She is drifting. I... I think she is alone; I can't sense anyone else. So alone._" Wanda's voice shivered.

Bruce looked reluctant. "Alright... but be careful."

"_I will._"

Coulson was looking down at Emma with something like pity, anger and hope in his eyes, blended together like colours.

"Do it," was all he said.

Wanda reached out with her mind towards the sleeping girl. She pulled the thoughts to the surface of the struggling, confused mass of dreams and fear.

Emma gasped, her eyes flying open.

And suddenly Bucky was there – or his voice was, at least. "_Emma, it's me. Calm down, now. It's me. It's only me._"

Emma's normal eye was wild and terrified, like a cornered wolf. She gripped the sides of the bed, and it began to disintegrate under her fingers. Her hand came up and wrenched off the oxygen mask.

Bruce looked at Coulson. "We might have to sedate her again."

Wanda and Bucky were still trying to calm Emma down.

"_Emma, Emma, it's me. It's Bucky. You're alright._"

Emma's breathing began to calm, and her heart rate (which had spiked the moment she'd woken up) became regular again.

Bruce looked at the readouts on the machines again. "Emma, goddammit, you gave us a scare just then. Don't ever do that again, okay?" Emma, now that she knew where she was, began to cry again. "Why did you bring me back?" she whispered. "Why? I was dead. The world was better."

Bruce stared at her as if she were speaking Martian. "We need you, Emma."

"That's all?"

"You're like..." Bruce paused. "A daughter. Our daughter. After we lost..." his voice trailed off, his eyes automatically sliding to the machine readouts.

"_After she killed me._" Peter said flatly.

"Yes." Bruce said. "After... you fell."

"_No hard feelings, Emma._" Peter's voice was light, casual, but with an undercurrent of sarcasm that was impossible to ignore.

The door opened. Thor, his ever-present axe swinging in his hand, walked inside. "This is the Midgardian that caused so much grief? She is a mere girl."

Emma snarled at him: "I'm not a girl. I've never been a girl, not since I was brought to Sokovia in 1941."  
Thor spun his axe. Emma followed the movement, on edge now.

"You have been around for almost as long as I have, Lady Emma." Thor said, formal and polite as ever, but his tone joking.

"You're young, then."

"Not as young as my brother."

"You mean Loki."

Thor pulled up a hard plastic chair and sat down. His larger-than-life presence was incongruous next to the medical equipment, the trappings of normality that Bruce and the others clung to. "You knew him?"

"Proxima killed him, Thor. Don't you remember that I let you run? I was punished for that. My father... Thanos... likes punishment. Or at least, Maw does." Emma's voice wasn't accusing, just a little apologising. She feels the scar on her cheek where one spike pierced her mouth and forced her tongue down... Emma forced the memory away, shoving it to the back of her subconscious where the forgotten memory of Freya also nestles.

"I am sorry if I caused you pain." Thor actually looks sorrowful, but not only at the mention of his dead brother.

Emma inclined her head as well as she could while lying on her back. She sat up hurriedly so she could meet Thor's blue eyes.

"That's alright. Was Loki... good?"

"He was..." Thor paused, considering the question, "complicated. He has tried to kill me many times in the past, for example, when we were eight, but has saved my life so many times that I can't count. I... I can't believe that he is gone."

"If you kill one man, you are a murderer. If you kill millions of men, you are a conqueror. But if you kill them all... you are a god." Emma whispered. "A god..."

"You remind me of him. Your smile... the way we can never know for sure if we trust you..." Thor's voice was wondering.

Emma smiled. The Soul Stone pulsed, still retaining its angry red-gold glow. It pulsed like a separate heart. "That is a fantasy. I am human."

"_Are you?_" Wanda again.

"Genetically."

"_And inside?_"

"I am a monster."

"You are only a monster if you consider yourself one, Lady Emma," Thor said. "Do not think yourself a monster."

Emma looked at him, her normal eye perceiving everything. "But I am."

"_Emma -_"

"Don't butt in, Parker!" she snapped at him.

Lightning crackled along the edge of Thor's axe, tiny sparks of electricity like miniature stars. Emma was watching it, transfixed by the dancing points of light like a cat, both her normal and electronic eyes never still. Her hands were moving restlessly, flesh fingers sliding over metal ones. "I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night."

* * *

Steve came in to see her after Thor left, muttering about honing his axe. Emma suspected that he wanted some alone time. Emma remembered his brother – Loki – pierced by Proxima's spear, crumpling to the ground, blood spreading around him as he twitched once and was still. But Emma wasn't sure whether Loki was dead. Sure, she'd seen

_Steve Rogers. _

An odd figure by all accounts, but interesting. She had been taught about him, met him a few times (though Emma did not remember the meetings) but nice. Kind of fatherly.

He shouldn't be nice to her.

What was the point? She had disintegrated some of his best friends. And killed one of them.

Why did Steve not hate her?

"Emma? Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

Steve looked at her, and his blue eyes were penetrating. _Damn. _He was doing his 'Captain America is Disappointed With You' look. "You weren't, were you?"

Emma bit her lip and looked down. "No."

"You need to see beyond your own fault, Emma. You can't keep dwelling on the past or you will never be able to separate yourself from it." He paused to wipe his eye – was he crying?

"Mr Rogers?"

"_Steve?_" Bucky said, at almost the same time. "_Are you okay?_"

"My God, Bucky, I've missed you." Steve said softly. "I used to see you every day, and now... it's hard. You've never spoken before. Why?"

"_Emma was in trouble. I had to help her._"

Steve looked at Emma. The heart monitor counted the seconds with each beat of Emma's heart – _beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. _Emma, feeling the pain of her broken bones again, reached into the atoms and began healing them.

"They were angry," Emma explained. "So angry. Mr Quill... Wanda... others. They... It hurt, Mr Rogers..."

"Please, call me Steve," said Steve.

Emma looked like she was going to cry. Her voice kept stalling, pausing and then continuing, trying to speak. "... Steve. It... they broke... It hurt..."

"_Don't tell him, Emma,_" Bucky warned. "_He has enough bad memories to be dealing with at the moment._"

"I know. I am sorry about Mr Wilson."

Steve remembered Sam – the man's jokes, his constant smile except on a mission, the sun reflecting off the red-tinted goggles, his incredible skill at cooking, his equal talents at flying with the carbon-fibre wings.

The blood on those same wings, as stiff and unmoving as Sam's body.

Sam wouldn't be coming back from Wakanda. The Avengers – with Emma's help – had buried him outside the compound as soon as they had returned from Wakanda. Emma had used her ability to move the earth and Sam's body easily, and to create a gravestone.

"Are you sure he's not in there with the rest?"

"Yes." Emma tried her best to sound sad. It did not work. She simply sounded emotionless.

"Can you – Can you bring them back?"

"I don't know."

Steve looked at her, his eyes full of sudden anger. "Emma, if you're pretending – if you can bring them back -"

"Why would I pretend?" Emma said, genuinely surprised. "Why would I not have brought Bucky back by now, if I could? He -" Her voice became choked with tears towards the end of the sentence. Despite all Bucky had done to her in the past, he was like a father to her, always willing to listen.

"_Emma, Emma, don't cry, it's not your fault _-" Bucky tried to comfort her, clumsily using the phrases Clint used whenever his kids – Lila, Cooper and little Nathaniel – came to visit the compound. Bucky wasn't good with children.

"IT IS!" Emma screamed. "My fault, my fault, my fault, my -"

"Emma!" Steve yelled. "For God's sake, this was not your fault!"

"It is, it is, it is..." Emma was sitting up, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth on the hospital bed. "It is, is, is, is..."

"_It was Thanos._" Bucky said calmly. "_Stop blaming yourself._"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never meant..."

"I know, Emma." Steve smiled, though his eyes were full of tears. He was recalling Peggy, and the lost future they might have had, if not for HYDRA. He felt equal waves of anger, fear, and affection surging in his mind. "I know."

* * *

"_You are one person. One person out of many people. Emma, Medea, the little girl who lived in 1941, and Thanos's pet. You are..._"

"Yes." Emma felt her ability trembling at the tips of her fingers. "I am me."

"_You might call us sisters,_" Wanda said. "_We are very much alike._"

"You can help me through this, can't you, Wanda?"

Wanda paused. "_Without you, Emma, we would have lost everything. We still have, but at least we have gained a little as well._"

"A little. And what I've lost... is everything I ever loved."

"_Emma,_" Wanda whispered, "_I'm so, so sorry. I was so angry, so full of hate, I just wanted someone to take it out on, and, conveniently, you were there._"

Emma looked into the thin air that Wanda's voice seemed to occupy. "I forgive you."

"_Mr Quill may be a little harder to forgive,_" Wanda muttered darkly. "_I doubt he will ever forgive you, at any rate._"

"I don't know about him." Emma's bones were nearly healed now, broken again last night, when Quill and the other vengeful people in the Soul World had given them another beating, another round of shouted abuse and pain and broken bones. Another night of endless pain, eternal screaming. Emma knew that soon the pain and Quill will kill her. She tried to put it into words, but she could only manage a few sentences. "But I'm falling apart at the seams, Wanda. If pain was art... then I'd be a masterpiece."

She paused. The few seconds seemed to last a lifetime.

"I haven't got much time left, Wanda."

Then a brand-new voice – one Emma had never heard before – filled the air. She could sense a new presence in the Soul World.

"_We understand each other, Emma._"

Wanda seemed to flee. She ran to some far-off reach of the Soul World, hiding.

"Wh-Who are you?" Emma managed, trying to keep her voice level.

"_You don't know me? What a surprise. I've been watching you, Emma. I've seen you at your most vulnerable and at your strongest. I've been here throughout your pain and love, your rage and fear... you're so like me. I've been with you all your life, Emma. The woman you killed in 1941? She was not your mother..._

But the voice was male. How could this be?

"_I am._"

* * *

**Oooh! Guess who it is! (Clue: Anyone who knows their Norse mythology should get this immediately) Please ****review! Katie Trillion xx**


	5. Chapter 5

Infinity War: **L****IKE MOTHER, ****L****IKE DAUGHTER**

* * *

**A huge thankyou to everyone who has read this story and stuck with it! I'm sorry for the delay (there will be some more later on, as I'm still writing this and I have no idea how long it's going to be) but, again, THANKYOU SO MUCH for reading!**

* * *

_Don't be cautious, don't be kind_  
_You committed, I'm your crime_  
_Push my button anytime_  
_You got your finger on the trigger, but your trigger finger's mine_

_Silver dollar, golden flame_  
_Dirty water, poison rain_  
_Perfect murder, take your aim_  
_I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name_

_I would hate to see you go_

_I'm sorry now you know_

_Copycat, _by Billie Eilish

* * *

_Thought I found a way_  
_Thought I found a way_  
_But you never go away (never go away)_  
_So I guess I've got to stay now_

_Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here_  
_Even if it takes all night or a hundred years_  
_Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near_  
_Want to feel alive, outside I can fight my fear_

_Isn't it lovely, all alone?_  
_Heart made of glass, my mind of stone_  
_Tear me to pieces, skin to bone_  
_Hello, welcome home_

_Lovely, _by Billie Eilish

* * *

_Before the Snap_

* * *

Loki had been on Earth for a while now, hiding; only gods that could be trusted knew that she was even here.

She – Loki had decided to change gender again and had found that women were even stranger than gods – had been masquerading as Lilith Davies for almost a month now, waiting for her chance to see Emma.

Loki was walking through the rain-strafed New York streets, wrapped in a knee-length dark green coat and with a black scarf wound around her neck. She was pretty enough, with pale skin, Cate-Blanchett-esque cheekbones and long dark hair which she'd pulled into a ponytail.

Loki, clutching her now-sodden coat around her, pushed open the door to the bright little café, letting the welcome heat wash over her.

The café was brightly lit, and plastic-topped tables were arranged around the room, the plastic cleaner than most of the ones in New York. There was no one there apart from a bored-looking waitress – young, in her early twenties, with brown hair scraped into a raggedy ponytail – who was lounging behind the till, inaudible music playing from the white headphones that she was wearing.

Loki sat down at one of the tables, peeling off her coat and hanging on the back of her chair. She unwound the scarf from around her neck and hung that over the coat. Loki looked at the waitress, who wandered over in a vague fashion, pulling the headphones over her head and around her neck. She stopped by Loki's table.

"Hey," she said. "Horrible evening, isn't it?"

Loki nodded. The waitress' name label read _Evie. _Her hands, never still, flutter through the air, expressing her emotions. Loki was good at reading people. She was tired, a little frustrated, but satisfied that her shift would be over in ten minutes.

"Anything you want…" her voice trailed off, obviously asking after Loki's name. Her eyes scan Loki again, not with searching eyes, but inquisitive, interested.

"Lilith," Loki said.

Eve smiled. "Great name. Better than _Evie_." She was more relaxed than normal, Loki thought, probably because there was no one but Loki in the café. Loki wasn't used to the woman's bright smile; hardly anybody had smiled at her.

"Evie." Loki's voice took on a mesmeric tone. "_Just go back behind the till and keep listening to your music. Good girl. Now, you didn't see anything._" Loki smiled. The ability to fool any mortals was one of the perks of being a god.

Then Sif walked into the café, in her usual armour and with her sword and shield slung across her back. Her ebony-coloured hair was wet and she hadn't bothered with tying it up.

"Loki," Sif inclined her head. "How is the situation in Midgard?"

"At the present time? Wet," Loki wrung out the hem of her coat as Sif sat down opposite her. Behind the till, Evie was still utterly oblivious to the Norse goddess who had just walked in. She was nodding her head along to her music and leaning on the till like all was right with the world.

"I gathered that," Sif muttered. She drew her sword and laid it on the table within easy reach, looking grim. "Thanos is coming, Loki. And we believe that he may have a certain asset to help him."

"Emma," Loki breathed.

Sif nodded. "Your daughter has caused us a great deal of trouble in the past; make sure that she is sufficiently incapacitated so as not to cause any threat."

Loki crossed her arms. "You're asking me – her _mother_ – to hurt her?"

Sif just stared at her. "Just keep her unconscious."

Loki glared at Sif. "She won't know who I am or why I'm here! Thanos will have erased her memories, and Emma never knew me at all. They're convinced that I'm dead anyway."

Sif picked up her sword. "You'll have the element of surprise, then." She stalked out of the café.

Loki sighed. Behind the till, Evie hadn't noticed a thing.

Loki got up, put on her now-dry coat and wound her scarf around her neck. She gave a curt nod to Evie, who waved, and left the café.

Rain howled through the streets, stealing umbrellas from unsuspecting hands and tossing them carelessly into the air in celebration.

Loki, huddled in her coat again, walked through the rain-lashed New York streets, ignoring the questioning looks of inquisitive people, and thought of her lost daughter.

She shivered. Rain ran down from her wet ponytail and into her collar. Loki leant into the welcome shelter of a doorway and conjured a black umbrella. It was an effective illusion to cast; it kept off most of the rain.

Around her, the bustling late-night shoppers moved and shoved.

Loki held the umbrella with one hand, keeping it safe from the tugging hands of the rain and wind, and kept the other close to her side.

For a moment, she thought she saw the tall shape of Sif vanish around a corner, rain dripping from the goddess's shield and armour, but it wasn't her. Loki was alone in the rain. It was colder now, bitingly so.

Loki didn't increase her pace and kept the same dogged walk, surrounded by the shoving of hurrying people trying to get out of the dark, freezing streets.

Soon Loki was almost alone.

Rain punished the city, pouring down on it in a hate-filled deluge.

Loki kept walking.

(Sif and Loki's plan failed to work, as we know.)

* * *

_Present – After the Snap_

* * *

In the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, Emma dreamt.

_She is inside a glass cube, the walls around her thick and utterly transparent, and Emma can see everything outside with perfect clarity. _

_There's not much to see except grey concrete walls, and there is light enough to see shadows flowing over its surface, like liquid. _

"_Hello?" She calls, and her voice bounces off the glass and echoes back at her, seeming mournful, maybe a little scared. A near-forgotten memory stirs at the back of her mind – will she see Freya again? _

_Something tells her no. _

"_Hello?"_

_Emma looks up, and sees, far above her, roiling steel-grey storm clouds gather, although that shouldn't be possible in a concrete room. In the silence, every breath of air from Emma's mouth sounds loud and harsh. _

_Emma knows she is alone, and fear prickles her skin. _

_She is alone. _

_Emma still listens, for anything except her own breathing and the slow whisper of the clouds gathering above her. _

_Then rain begins to fall from the storm clouds, heavy and saturated with fear and pain. Emma looks up, wishing that the cool water could fall on her face, that she could drink it in. _

_The rain thuds against the glass ceiling, hard and fast, a rhythm like a beating heart, alive and fierce._

Thud. Thud. Thud-thud-thud-thud…

_The water floods over the sides of the glass cube, over the floor, beginning to lap at the walls in tiny wavelets, faster and faster. It pours from the storm above like it will never stop. _

_Then the rain begins to freeze. The frost, then ice, crackles over the floor, up the glass walls, blue-white and webbed with vein-like hairline cracks. _

_Emma slides down the glass wall, pressing her back against it, the glass as cold as her metal arm. _

_She feels like she's drowning. The air inside the glass cube is running out. As the ice closes in around her, the last thing she sees is the face and upper torso of a woman wearing a dark green coat, with long black windswept hair. There's blood on her face and it soaks her shoulder, turning the green material of her coat black with it. _

_One of the woman's pale hands, slick and scarlet with blood, is slammed against the glass, hammering to get in. _

_Emma backs away from her, not wanting to be near her. _

Help me, _the woman mouths. _Help me – please help me –

_Then she is dragged away as the relentless rain starts again, crashing down on the ice and breaking it with its force. _

_Emma can hardly see anything through the obscuring rain. She screams as the glass above her cracks and the water rushes in. It pours into her mouth and eyes, soaking her hair, washing over her skin. Emma opens her mouth, trying to keep her eyes open beneath the onslaught. _

_Then she realises that the rain isn't water anymore. _

_It's blood. _

_It's raining _blood.

_Emma screams. _

_All around her, the remainder of the ice becomes transparent, revealing the waterfall of lurid scarlet still falling from ceiling. _

_Then the bodies begin to pile up, hundreds of them packed in around her, all trapped outside the glass. _

_Everybody she killed or helped kill. Their blood smears along the glass, their blank eyes staring, accusing, their limp hands reaching to press against the glass, wanting to get through, to reach her. _

_Emma's vision blurs, her scream mingling with the slowly cracking of the glass around her, but Emma knows that it will not break, not yet. She knows where the inert bodies will come from next. _

_She expects the first one as it thumps into her shoulder, knocking her to the ground with its cold weight. She pushes it off her, standing quickly and trying not to slip on the blood, not looking at its face. Not wanting to know whose the body was. _

_The second body catches her off guard, making her fall to the ground again, almost crushing her._

_Then they come thick and fast. Emma can't get out of the way quickly enough, and soon she's drowning in them, drowning in bodies. _

_Around her, the glass finally fractures and falls in a shower of razor-sharp shards that are wet with blood and water, and cold hands slip around the mass of hurtling glass; in the centre, Emma is screaming. _

_Slowly steel cables fall from the ceiling, spooling out and curling around the necks of the dead, seemingly of their own volition. _

_The bodies, suspended by the cables, lift and swing above the sea of congealing blood and smashed glass, and Emma is taken with them, the freezing metal cold against the slick of warm blood against her skin. _

_She chokes, scrabbling at the metal, but she can't do anything as she's lifted up into the air with the rest of the bodies. _

_They swing around her, macabre silent puppets. There's barely any light to see them by, and they throw huge black shadows across the walls, lunging towards Emma in a terrifying mass of darkness. _

_Emma can barely breathe now, her throat constricted by the steel. Then the cable loosens and tumbles away, a shining snake drowning in the blood below. _

_Two more cables quickly extend, catching Emma just as she begins to fall, slithering around her wrists so that she hangs with her arms outstretched. _

_At least she can breathe now. _

_Around her, the bodies swing and turn on their cables, eyes blank or bloody or not there at all, just empty dark sockets. _

_Then one of the bodies turns to face her. _

_It's Thanos, his huge purple body strung up like washing hung out to dry, the wound that Thor's axe caused a gaping red hole that is crusted with blood and gore. _

_His eyes roll. _

"_Em… Emma…"_

_The words are in Emma's mouth before she can stop them. "Father? Father, help me, please help me –" _

_Thanos raises his head, his eyes meeting Emma's. _

"_I can't help you," he says. A single tear trickles down his face as the cable breaks and he's sent tumbling towards the blood-and-glass hell-scape below. _

"_FATHER!" Emma screams. She can't control the words, it's instinctive, the reaction engrained into her memories. _

_Thanos hits the ground with an explosion that sprays a corona of blood and glass through the air. He convulses for a moment, nothing more, then he is still, the blood all around him swirling, disturbed and dangerous. _

_More of the bodies turn on the cables. They're all people Emma knows, all people that she's killed. _

_Wanda, her red dress hanging around her like a flag without a breeze to make it billow, the fabric as limp as her muscles. _

_Peter, covered in blood, his ribs broken, blood crusted around his mouth and trickling from one nostril. _

_Gamora, untarnished and beautiful, tears frozen on her face, frozen in time as she fell, thrown from the cliff on Vormir. _

_Bucky, bleeding, always bleeding, the scarlet star emblazoned on his metal shoulder painted in blood. His eyes are full of that terrifying predatory pleasure, the expression he wore at HYDRA. _

_More, many more. _

_All limp, blood-spattered, dead-eyed, and accusing. _

_Then they fall as the cables uncoil from their necks, letting them drop to the floor like Thanos, sending glass and blood into the air in perverse celebration. _

_Emma, still trapped by the steel cables around her wrists, struggles as Bucky's body falls past her, his blood-slick metal arm shining in the faint light. _

"_Bucky!" Emma screams, even though she knows he can't hear her._

_Then one more body falls from the ceiling, and is jerked to a sudden stop by the steel cable around its neck. It stops right next to Emma, the cable around its throat uncurling, replaced by ones at its wrists, holding it like Emma, as though crucified. _

_Then its head lifts from its bent position against its chest. _

_The man is young, still in his late teens, with white-blonde hair and eyes as dark and wild as a forest. He looks strange, still, trapped, with the cables clinging to his wrists, as though he should be moving fast, much faster. _

_So fast he's a blur. _

"_Hello, Emma," says Pietro. He smiles, and there's blood on his teeth. "It's lovely to see you again."_

* * *

Emma woke up, gasping and drenched in sweat.

Her heart raced. She could still see Pietro, his image branded on the inside of her mind.

She tried to pull herself out of the fog of sleep, but it was impossible. The dream consumed her again.

It pulled her down into its midnight depths; letting the cold bite into her limbs, bury its teeth in her bones.

It held her under.

* * *

_She is standing at one end of a long corridor. _

_Monochrome light creeps nervously through a few small windows and washes a dull gloomy radiance over the scene. Outside, straggly brown ivy weakly attempts to force open the window. _

_Emma thinks she is alone. _

_Then the long, rattling breathing starts. _

_It is not hers. Her breathing is harsh and fast, scared. _

_Emma stares around, squinting up and down the corridor for the source of it. She isn't sure if it comes from behind her or in front of her. _

_Then a hand taps her on the shoulder. She turns around and screams. _

_It's Bucky, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets, his face bruised and covered in blood, his hand on her arm, holding it with an iron grip. His eyes are blank, vacant, but he seems much stronger than he should be, even with the twisted enhancements of HYDRA engrained into him. _

"_Bucky?" Emma whispers. "Bucky?"_

_He doesn't answer. His other hand reaches out, trapping her. His mouth opens to show bloodstained teeth. _

"_Bucky?" Emma's voice is higher now, scared. She tries to step away. _

_Then there's the sound of someone running towards Emma, his or her footsteps thumping on the floor. A woman's voice screams:_

"_RUN, EMMA! RUN!"_

_Emma wrenches her arms out of Bucky's grip and runs. He begins to walk after her, oddly slowly, like he knows he'll catch up. Then he is pulled back by the rain-soaked white hand that closes around his throat. _

_Behind him is a tall, thin woman dressed in green, her long black hair sopping wet and clinging to her back. _

_Emma keeps running, leaving her. Then she runs into someone… someone wearing a torn red-and-blue metal suit, crusted with blood. The faceplate is missing, torn away, revealing his face. _

_It's Peter. His brown hair his mussed, crusted with blood. One of his eyes is swollen shut, the other seemingly blank, not full of laughter, and more recently sincerity, pain, or fear. Blood paints his cheek and the upper right side of his face, over his swollen eye. His left arm hangs at a strange angle, but he can move it well enough. _

"_Peter? Peter, can you hear me?"_

_He blinks, slowly. He doesn't understand – maybe he can't. Prepared this time, Emma moves out of the way of his first clumsy grab at her, but then his hand locks around her wrist, pulling her close to him._

Please let this be an actual dream,_ Emma thinks. _Please - _please - _let this place not be the Soul World.

_Emma knows that the prayer is futile. She's been wondering it for while now, if what she is seeing in her second 'dream' is real. _

_She feels Peter's mouth on her cheek, and for a second she thinks he's going to kiss her. _

_Then he bites down, and Emma tastes blood in her mouth. _

_Everything goes black._

* * *

Emma woke up.

She was shivering and her heart was racing. She felt like she was going to scream or be sick or both. She put her hand to her face and felt dents, bruising – bite marks.

_What the hell happened?_

"Bruce," she tried to say, but nothing came out of her mouth. Emma realised she didn't want to talk.

Bruce rushed into her room anyway, looking tired, concerned and scared.

"Emma? What happened? The monitor detected high pulse and breathing rate. Are you okay? You've gone white."

Emma shook her head.

"Are you scared?" Bruce pulled up a chair and sat down, his voice soft and soothing, not at all annoyed that he'd been woken up at three in the morning.

Emma nodded.

"Can you speak to me?"

Emma shook her head.

"Do you want to speak to me?"

Shake.

"Can you tell me what happened in another way?"

Nod.

"Can you write it down?"

Nod.

Bruce handed her a notebook and pen. Emma scribbled: _Sketchbook. Pencils. I can show you. _

Bruce hurried out of the room. He returned with the remainder of the Avengers, and a sketchbook and pencils.

Emma took them, ignoring the presence of the other Avengers. She started to draw, her hand moving slowly across the paper.

She drew a long grey corridor, with a dark silhouetted figure at one end. In the next drawing, the figure is closer, more distinct. It's Bucky, his face just as disfigured as it was in the Soul World.

Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth. "What's – What's wrong with him, Emma?" His voice shook.

_I don't know. _Emma wrote. _He was strange. When I said his name, he didn't answer. _

Her pencil moved across the paper again.

_Colours, _she wrote. _Blue, red, brown, purple. More red. _

They brought her the coloured pencils without question. She drew the face of a boy, then his shoulders and upper torso, clothed in blue and red metal. His hair was dark brown and messy, his face bruised, one of his eyes clearly swollen shut. Blood covered the bruised side of his face.

"My God…" Bruce breathed. "Is that… Peter?"

Emma nodded. _He is gone. Unfixable. I don't know how to save him. I don't know what to do. _

"What happened to them, Emma?" Bruce looked at the drawings. He seemed to be struggling not to cry.

_I don't know. _Emma touched her cheek. _Peter bit me. _

Steve spluttered. "He _bit_ you?"

Emma nodded. _Lost, _she wrote.

_Lost. _

She wrote a little more. _I think it's my fear, affecting what is happening in the Soul World. I must stop being scared. _

Steve stared at the letters, as though the scribbled words were unfamiliar.

_The souls who aren't affected are fighting, but I don't know if they can keep up with the others. They might die, they might vanish, I just don't know. _

Finally, Emma felt like she could speak; her voice was choked with fear and tears, full of terror:

"I-I don't know how to h-help them!"

The pencil fell from her limp fingers, clattering on the floor. Emma felt the Soul Stone pulse. Light threaded its way across her face, lighting up her veins again. Emma saw the Soul World flash before her eyes again -

* * *

_The Soul World_

* * *

_The scream of the Innocent went on and on and then stopped. The Guilty looked up from the body. _

_Guilty. _

_Innocent. _

_It meant everything now._

_It wondered vaguely about the difference between them. _

_Then it continued with its meal. _

_Innocents tasted good. Like sugar._

* * *

_The Innocents and the Guilty (the word was used both as singular and plural) had emerged a few days ago, starting with one and then more becoming strange and detached, finally becoming mad. _

_Not mad as talking-to-yourself mad. _

_Mad as in hunting-and-eating-other-souls mad. _

_Soon the nicknames had come into common use, started on the basis that there was some indefinable thing about those affected or not affected – innocence and guilt. Those that were bitten didn't survive. _

_The Innocents, who were now running and hiding from the Guilty, had been depleted by this. There were seven left now: Stephen, Groot, Wanda, Maria, Shuri, T'Challa and the empath Mantis. Bucky had been the second soul to be affected, and Peter had been bitten soon after that; the Innocents were all scared of what they could do, as both still had semi-control over their mental faculties – Bucky's formidable Winter Soldier training – and abilities – Peter's wall-climbing and web-shooters. _

_They were hiding in the remnants of Peter's room, trying to tell when a Guilty was here, helped along by Wanda's psionic ability. _

"_There's one coming now," she whispers, red light flickering around her hands. "Stephen?" T'Challa says. "Your moment?"_

_They discovered early on that Stephen could use his ability to manipulate time to reverse the effects of whatever had happened, saving Wanda and Shuri in the process. _

_Stephen wrenches open the door and pulls the Guilty inside. It's Peter, his face bloody, his body jerking like a puppet dancing on its strings. He's drooling, utterly mad now, taken by the disease. _

_He fights, lashing out at Stephen, but the older man's hands move, intricate patterns of green light forming around his fingers. _

_Time moves. The swelling around Peter's eye shrinks and vanishes. The blood, crusted red on the side of his face, goes back to liquid and pours backwards into the gash on the side of his head. The mad look in his eyes vanishes. He goes limp in Stephen's grip, limp as a rag doll. Breathing like a dying bird, tiny soft intakes of air that mean he's alive. _

"_He's safe," Stephen says. The boy trembles in his arms. Mantis moves forwards, placing her hand on Peter's forehead, calming him with her emotion-controlling ability. His breathing steadies, becoming slow and deep. _

_Then another figure shambles past the open door, and stops just out of view. _

_Slowly, it turns. _

_Walks back. _

_And stops again. _

_It looks at them with the blank stare of the Guilty. In its arms, it's holding the limp body of a black-haired woman – Loki. There are bite marks on her arms and on her face, but she seems alright. Must be one of the perks of being a god. _

_The Guilty tosses her aside, and she lands sprawled on her back. _

_The Guilty hisses at the sudden noise. _

_It takes a step forwards._

* * *

**Dun dun dun! (sorry, couldn't resist) Hope you liked the story! Please review to share thoughts, comments, or areas for improvement! **

**Katie Trillion xx**


	6. Chapter 6

Infinity War: **GUILTY**

* * *

**Thankyou so much to everyone reading this! In this chapter, we go further into the Soul World and the perspective of Innocent and Guilty.**

* * *

_What do you want from me?_

_Why don't you run from me?_

_What are you wondering?_

_What do you know?_

_Why aren't you scared of me?_

_Why do you care for me?_

_When we all fall asleep_

_Where do we go?_

_Come here_  
_Say it, spit it out, what is it exactly?_  
_Your pain is the amount, cleaning you out, am I satisfactory?_  
_Today, I'm thinking about_

_The things that are deadly_  
~

_Bury a Friend, _by Billie Eilish

* * *

The sun was warm on Thanos's face as he sat and gazed at the sunrise. Gold washed over the landscape.

The light was as gold as the Soul Stone.

Thanos tapped his fingers against his other hand; the hand that had so recently been enclosed in the Gauntlet. The magical glove was now on a stand, the metal half-melted and the fingers broken and battered, the cavity where the Soul Stone should have been looking like an abscess – rotten and infected.

Thanos stared at the sunrise and thought of Emma; the girl's screams as he'd pressed the Stone into her head had almost made him stop.

Once again, Thanos wondered if he'd done the right thing. She was just a teenager, after all… But no, Thanos berated himself. She was not _just a girl. _Emma was so much more than human – so much more.

He wondered vaguely when the crops that were displayed in the rolling fields around him would ripen.

* * *

_The Soul World_

* * *

_Stephen passes Peter to Mantis and steps forwards, his hands outstretched, green light flickering around his fingers. _

_The Guilty snarls and matches him step for shaking step. _

"_Leave him to me," Wanda says, red light cascading from her hands. The Guilty is pushed back by her ability, but fights it anyway. Eventually it crashes into a wall and slides down it. _

"_Out of commission," Wanda says, satisfied. "How's the kid?"_

"_Breathing," Stephen answers, as Mantis lowers Peter gently to the ground. "Can you sense any more?" _

_Slowly, Wanda nods. "This one – I think it's Bucky."_

_Stephen swears under his breath. "Not him, damn it!"_

_Peter stirs, his hand twitching. Then he wakes, his body jolting upwards, his mouth open in a scream. "No! No, Emma!" His voice goes weaker, smaller, younger. "I-I didn't m-mean to – I-I'm s-sorry –"_

_Mantis is there in a second, calming him, making sure he is alright. _

"_Peter, Peter, what happened?" she asks. _

_Peter's eyes brim with tears. "I-I bit her – I bit Emma."_

"_You –" Mantis takes an involuntary step back from him, her black eyes shining and glinting in the light from Stephen and Wanda's hands. _

"_He's fine," Stephen reassures her. "Trust me, he's fine."_

"_STEPHEN!" Wanda screams. The Guilty is looming in the doorway, and it's only Wanda's shield of red light keeping it back. _

_It's Bucky, the animalistic glint in his eyes clearer than ever. Mantis screams, and Shuri swears. She whacks her hands together so the glove-like metal contraptions that encase them light up blue. _

_Wanda's hands twist, causing Bucky to stumble backwards. "Bucky, I hate doing this," she mutters under her breath, "But if you don't snap out of it, I will hurt you."_

* * *

Emma's eyes snapped open. "No, Bucky, no!" she screamed. "No, no, no!"

Steve jerked out of his seat. "Emma – what –"

Then Emma's face drained of colour; her hands clutched tightly at arms of her chair.

"Bucky!" she screamed again. "No, no, Bucky, please, no… Wanda, Stephen, do something!"

* * *

_Bucky lunges forward. Wanda's magic jerks with him, catching Peter instead, and it flings the boy towards Bucky. _

_Stephen runs forward, green light flickering and swirling around his frantically moving hands. Time shifts again, but not nearly fast enough. One swift bite to Peter's neck and another to his cheek – that's all it takes. Peter's body begins to spasm violently, his arms thrashing wildly. _

_Stephen swears. _

_Wanda forms a shield around the terrified boy, keeping him in as the disease begins to take hold again. _

_Bucky is the more pressing problem. Shuri hits him with her metal glove-like inventions, but it doesn't seem to affect him. Instead he picks her up and throws her across the room. Shuri collides with a wall and slides down it, lying still. T'Challa takes a swipe at him, but his claws blunt on Bucky's metal arm. The Wakandan king meets the same fate as his sister. _

_Then – _

"_Bucky," Peter whispers. His hand is on Bucky's arm, restraining him. "Can you hear me? Are you hungry?"_

_It's the first time any of the Innocents have heard a Guilty speak – and Peter is certainly back to Guilty. _

_Slowly, Bucky nods. "Always," he mutters gruffly._

* * *

Emma was still moaning softly. "God, no, no, no…"

Natasha put a hand on her arm. "Don't be scared, Woods. Be angry."

* * *

_Emma's anger poured into the Soul World like blistering lava, ripping through the fearful presence of the disease. Somewhere, everywhere, people scream._

_Peter screams, writhing, blood streaming from his injured face. Bucky screams, as though he's back at HYDRA. _

_Loki screams. So she is Guilty. _

_Wanda is on her knees, shaking Peter's shoulder as the boy goes limp in her arms, the blood on her hands unmistakeable. Shuri is next to her, asking her what happened, why his he bleeding – _

"_Wanda, what - why - why is he bleeding?" _

_Wanda points with a trembling finger to the hole in Peter's side that lances all the way through his body and out of his back. Bucky has another knife in his hand, his eyes confused, full of pain and anger and fear. He probably doesn't know where he is or how he got here. _

_Shuri rips one of her metal gloves off her hands and pulls a toolkit from her pocket, fashioning an impromptu metal bandage designed to replicate lost blood. She presses it to the wound, and it instantly bonds to Peter's skin. _

"_That knife nicked his spleen, which is causing most of the bleeding," Shuri said, quickly tearing the bandage in half and applying it to the unconscious boy's back, supporting him at the same time, so that Peter is propped up in a floppy sort of sitting position. _

"_Let me," Loki says, standing up. She looks drawn and tired, her green coat covered in spatters of blood, her cheeks hollow and her dark hair lank and lifeless. She spreads her fingers over the holes and they fill with green light. "The illusion's strong enough to sustain him until we get out of here," she explains, pushing her hair out of her face as she stands up._

* * *

"Emma! Emma, are they okay? Emma, can you hear me?" Someone slapped her gently across the face. "Emma!"

"Th-They're fine. Just… well, Peter almost died."

Steve relaxed back into his seat. "If Tony were here, he'd have had a mental breakdown by now."

Emma considered the possibility. "I think I can draw people out of the Soul World if I want… but we can't get to Tony because we don't know where he is other than in space."

Casually, Bruce said: "There's a locator in that suit. I could track it. And Carol could find him. She can fly."

"That tracker only lasts as long as the suit. It was damaged." Emma said, her face pale. "I damaged it. I'm sorry."

Emma remembered her first, disastrous meeting with Tony – when he'd told her to leave the Avengers compound and never come back, told her that she didn't belong and that it would be better if she were dead. Would the billionaire still be the same after what had happened on Titan, or would he have forgiven Emma for her blind trust of Thanos, even though she couldn't control it?

* * *

_The Soul World_

_The Innocent was running. Her lungs were burning, her legs beginning to cramp, her heart thudding in her chest. Panic made it even harder to breathe. _

_It was after her. _

_She turned, pushing her short dark hair out of her eyes with a sweaty hand, feeling the gash on her face – crusted with dried blood, maybe infected – a memento of her last encounter with a Guilty – one that she would remember forever. _

_Her uniform was torn, ragged, bloody from the shallow scratches that had made a noughts-and-crosses board across her ribcage, she was limping from another cut on her right calf, a narrow escape, and she was exhausted from running. _

_Maria Hill, reduced to this? Impossible. _

_She stared around, looking for some sign of movement, a flash of colour that would betray a watching Guilty. _

_Maria had been fighting the infection for a long time now, feeling it creep through her veins from the graze that had been just a tiny amount of Guilty teeth ripping through the fabric of her uniform. She knew that only on more complete bite would tip her over the edge. Maria also knew that other S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents had been exiled to the Soul World. _

_Therefore, she was technically running from her own people. _

_Maria sucked in a breath through her teeth. The stitch in her side was starting to subside, meaning that she had spent too long resting. She took in another deep breath, feeling the blood begin to pulse from the wound in her calf. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Maria looked around one more time, and began running again, a harum-scarum wild race through the Soul World._

* * *

_Emma's fury subsided, replaced by uncertainty, allowing the influence to creep back in, as strong as ever. _

_People knew that something had been wrong, a second ago, maybe more… but it was gone now. _

_It had never existed._

* * *

_Peter Quill had stumbled across the small, screaming thing by accident. By its smell, he had known that it was Innocent – it was child-sized, but an alien-looking thing, skinny, its skin pale white and its eyes large, reptilian and scarlet – but Innocent nonetheless. _

_Peter had thought it tasted of something… began with 'f'... memories swirled like water going down a plughole, just out of his reached. He snarled with frustration, tearing another gash into the Innocent. _

'_F'… sh… fish, that was it. The little alien creature tasted like fish. Peter grinned, his lips bloody, scraps of flesh stuck between his teeth, his nails filthy and ragged and his hair in the same state. _

_He moaned softly to himself, his stomach full of a hungry fire that consumed the flesh of the Innocent obscenely fast and howled for more._

_Gamora had not crossed his mind since Peter had bitten him. _

* * *

_Wanda stepped forwards again. Bucky stumbled backwards, moaning, hiding away from the light burning his eyes. _

"_Bucky," Wanda said, her voice soft, soothing. "Please." _

_Half-crouched next to him, Peter snarled, his lips curling back to show bloodied teeth. The metal bandages hampered him for a few seconds, then he tore them off, allowing his accelerated healing to do the work for him, although blood still spattered the ground. He looked feral, more aware than Bucky, more agile and flexible as well. He flipped, his body twisting in mid-air, suddenly behind Wanda –_

* * *

The stars outside the window wheeled and glowed, an intricate, unfathomable galaxy, surrounded by a cloudy veil that was a nebula.

Tony Stark lay limply on the floor of the ship, the arc reactor in his chest pulsing softly, a comfort.

He thought back to when he had last eaten – he had to ration food now.

He had to survive, to get back to Pepper.

* * *

_Shuri grinned, and she and T'Challa (whose Black Panther suit was glowing with absorbed kinetic energy he hadn't had the chance to discharge) charged, Shuri's metal contraptions – blaster gauntlets – glowed blue, discharging blue light. Peter snarled again, then he was knocked backwards by a burst of blue light. _

"_You're going to have to fix that white boy, too," T'Challa remarked, "It won't be nearly as fun as Everett."_

"_Hush, brother," Shuri reprimanded him. "This is much more than a simple bullet to the spine." She gestured to Peter, who was groaning as he tried to get up, still bleeding, but he didn't seem to care. He was driven by hunger, maddened by it, nothing more than an animal. _

* * *

Tony felt so alone, with the bleak faces of the stars staring impassively down on him. All the fight had gone out of him as Peter – his _kid _– had died, had fallen, had been killed, and he couldn't do anything to help him, not with all his money and influence.

Tony finally understood what _helpless _meant.

"I'm sorry, Peter – I'm so sorry –" Tony felt the tears well up, crowding his eyes, shimmering as the stars wheeled above him.

* * *

_Drax was hungry. He hadn't found anything to eat in ages, and now the hunger was starting to gnaw at him. He had last eaten something humanoid, a rare commodity here, and it had been screaming. He remembered it almost fondly. The Innocent had been male, and had white hair, a scruffy white beard, cracked glasses and a lined, learned-looking face, which had been pale with fear. The Innocent's hands had been shaking, but it had been ancient enough not have put up much of a fight. There hadn't been much flesh on its skinny frame, though, and the soul had been tasteless. _

_Drax kept walking, every now and then bumping off the walls of unknown rooms. _

_He needed to find food. _

* * *

_T'Challa walked over to Peter, hoisting him up. The boy's teeth and flailing hands and feet glanced off his suit as T'Challa carried him, gently but firmly trapping his limbs as he did so. _

"_Please, Peter," T'Challa whispered, his voice tender even though he had never known the boy, "I don't want to do this. You could have been my friend." T'Challa's suit glowed brighter as the kinetic energy concentrated. _

"_Brother, wait!" Shuri yelled. "Don't do this. We can save him!"  
"It would be kinder to kill him, you know," T'Challa said, pulling a rope from about his person and binding Peter with ease. The boy writhed, growling and half-screaming, almost choking on his own voice. The Wakandan king removed his panther-like helmet, revealing his handsome face, set and serious. "Much kinder. Even if we didn't, Shuri, he would still be trapped here. Knowing what he has done."_

_Shuri glowered at her brother, the Kimoyo-bead bracelet on her wrist rattling as she put her hands on her hips. _

"_Don't. You. Dare, T'Challa –"_

"_I'm sorry, Shuri."_

* * *

"Peter, I'm sorry, I'm sorry –" Tony saw the stars blur as tears obscured his vision and his memories. Peter – bleeding, falling, hearing the sickening _crack _as he landed on his back, his face bloody, his eyes misty and vacant.

"I'm so sorry…"

* * *

_Wanda forced Bucky back. The light hurt him, she could see that more clearly now – was it just the light, or her own ability that was causing the reaction?_

_He growled at her. _

"_Stephen," she called over her shoulder, "Ste –"_

"_Right here, Wanda." Stephen's fluid hands began to describe shapes in the air, which slowly took on the intricate patterns and pictures of Time Magic. "There we go," Stephen murmured. "Good."_

_Bucky's eyes cleared, replaced with disorientation and terror. His breathing became fast and harsh, almost hyperventilation. He staggered backwards, almost falling, but Wanda caught him with an easy sweep of red light. _

"_What…" Bucky whispered, his voice hoarse, sounding as though it had been shattered and put inexpertly back together. _

"_We have no idea. But you're back now and –"_

_Suddenly Shuri's shout of horror dragged their eyes to her. _

"_Peter!"_

* * *

**Sorry this chapter was a bit short, but I promise I will update. By the way, not all of our characters are going to come back from the Soul World as the same people they were... if they do come back... and did anyone guess who Drax ate? (cue maniacal laughter). Please ****review to let me know if you guessed right!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	7. Update

Author Update

**Hi everyone, sorry for the delay but I am getting four teeth taken out today and have been agonising and worrying over it for the past week, so I will try to post a new chapter tomorrow! Please have patience and just wait a bit longer. **

**Katie Trillion xx**


	8. Chapter 7

Infinity War: **I****NNOCENCE**

* * *

**Thankyou to everyone reading this, and sorry for the delay! Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

_Can you hear the prayer of the children?_

_On bended knee_

_In the shadow of an unknown room?_

_Empty eyes_

_With no more tears left to cry_

_Turning heavenward_

_Towards the light_

_Crying _

'_Jesus help me, to see the morning light of one more day.'_

'_And if I die before I wake,'_

"_I pray my soul to take.'_

_Prayer of the Children_, by Kurt Bestor

* * *

_The Soul World_

* * *

_Peter screamed. He rolled out of the way as T'Challa's claws scythed past his face and dug into the floor. Peter scrambled to his feet and backed away. _

"_T'Challa, no!" Stephen roared, but there was nothing he could do, as getting in the way might make the situation worse. _

_Peter cowered, curled in on himself, covering his head with his arms. He was shaking, either with tears, fear, or the disease nobody was sure. Blood still trickled from the healing gash in his side. _

"_Brother!" Shuri yelled, her blaster gauntlets raised, "Brother, you can't do this!"_

_T'Challa, his claws gleaming in the red light of Wanda's ability, turned to her. "Shuri, don't question me. I told you before, it's kinder to kill him."_

_Shuri felt a tear trace down her cheek. "Brother, this isn't the real world –" she stopped, feeling ager bubbling inside her. The tears that had been on the edge of falling were gone. She yelled: "T'Challa, you're being an idiot! This world changes people – it's changed everyone! Don't let change you for the worse!"_

_T'Challa looked at her gravely, as though imparting news of a death of a loved one. His dark eyes were remorseless, however, as, once again, he moved towards the still-cowering, whimpering figure of Peter._

* * *

"T'Challa!" Emma screamed. "Not you – not you –"

Bruce hurried forwards to question her – "What happened, Emma? What has he done?"

Emma felt the Soul Stone pulse, glowing brighter. "He's trying to kill him – he's trying to kill Peter – and Shuri's trying to stop him -" she gazed into empty space for a second.

* * *

_Peter stared up at T'Challa, tears clouding his eyes, feeling the disease – anger, fear, confusion, terror, hunger – roiling inside him, reeling away from the memories of his past life, of MJ and Aunt May, Mr Stark, Ned, even Flash Thompson. He curled in on himself still more, cringing away from what he truly was. _

_He looked up into T'Challa's stony face. Fear flooded him, racing through his veins like blood. "Please…" he whispered. Then the claws moved, faster than he could have imagined. He flipped out of the way, scrambling up a wall, feeling T'Challa's claws nick his ankle, glancing off the metal of his suit. Then the Wakandan king had moved again, on the other side of him, aiming for the weak spot of the wound in Peter's side. Peter scuttled up the wall still further, trying to keep out of the way, but Peter knew that he couldn't evade him forever. _

_He had to go on the offensive at some point. He tried to remember how this had happened - how he'd ended up like this; bitten and maddened, but different to the others - he still had a sense of self, and now it was stronger than ever. He'd never lost the key memories, that, though they were huddled at the back of his mind, scared to come out, were still _there_, still present. But he'd bitten Emma - bitten her, possibly infected her, and he couldn't forgive himself. _

_Peter flipped off the wall, landing on T'Challa's back, locking his hands around the king's throat and squeezing with all his enhanced strength. T'Challa fell to the ground and rolled, so that Peter lost his grip at the violent movement, and he was on top of Peter, crushing him, still clawing and any exposed skin he could reach. Peter felt long scratches being torn into his face and neck, gushing blood. _

_Then Peter's disease-ridden, instincts kicked in - he __scrambled up T'Challa's body, avoiding the wildly slashing claws, and bit down on the man's neck, just below his jaw; Peter tasted blood in his mouth, hot and strangely sweet, almost sugary. He felt T'Challa's body begin to spasm, limbs flailing, saw the king's eyes widening in pain and fear. Satisfied, Peter unfastened his teeth from T'Challa's neck and licked the blood from his lips and fingers._

_"Peter?" Wanda whispered. "Peter, is that you?"_

_He stared at her. "Of course it's me," he said, his voice oddly reverential. Blood trickled into his mouth from the slowly-healing gashes on his cheeks and forehead, and there was another, deeper cut on his shoulder, where the suit had been damaged form his fall on Titan. "Please... don't be scared." He took a step forwards._

* * *

_Shuri ran to T'Challa, who had stopped shaking and was lying quite still. "Brother!" she yelled, shaking his shoulders, frantically pressing her ear to his chest. Then he sat up, slowly and carefully, with no horror-movie speed. His claws scrabbled at the floor. "Shuri..." he murmured. Shuri was quick enough to flinch and then scramble away from him as he stood up, using the horrible, unnatural, vampiric speed and fluidity._

_Shuri raised her hands, her blaster gauntlets glowing blue. "I don't want to hurt you," she said, her voice steady. "Don't make me do this."_

* * *

_Loki had been stumbling through the eternal monochrome corridors for what seemed like forever. She had no idea how she had gotten here, only that she _was_. Loki__ was limping, stumbling, and bleeding from a deep cut in her calf that made her leg buckle every time she put any weight on it. Her hair was ragged, overlong and matted with blood from a recently healed cut over one eye. Loki's coat was torn, even more ragged than her hair, and her face was bruised, deep purple semicircles under her eyes showing that she had had no sleep. _

_Around her, the ivy that strangled the windows seemed to be creeping up on her, straggly tendrils reaching out for her, obscuring the little light that entered through the glass. The floorboards were rotten, slimy, lie skin peeling away to expose the muscle of the world. Loki's senses were on red alert; she jumped at every creaking floorboard, every crack of a wall giving way, every whisper of wind against the windows. _

_Loki could smell the Guilty following her, a mixture of sweat, blood, and the sickly-sweet scent of decay. It had been tailing her for days now, and Loki was almost __collapsing from lack of sleep and the cut on her leg, which wasn't healing. She knew who it was as well - Peter Quill. She could smell the blood that was crusted around his mouth, hear the soft, rattling rasp of his breathing. Peter was one of the most vicious of the Guilty, killing for sport as well as food. A soft groan escaped his lips every so often, and if you were close to him, it sounded like "Gamora..." _

_Loki heard him, closer now. She looked up; the corridor ended in a blank, blood-spattered greyish wall. She turned. Green light - half-formed illusions - flickered around the tips of her fingers. She would have to manifest her material form in the real world. _

_Loki took a deep breath, concentrating on Emma's face. She drifted into blackness for a second. Then - BAM - she was on the floor, blackness creeping at the edges of her vision, bleeding into it, staring at a multitude of faces. "Emma..." she whispered, then the blackness claimed her. _

* * *

_Shuri felt the claws digging into her abdomen as T'Challa leapt on her, snarling, blood still seeping from the wounds in his neck, his eyes wild. Her mouth opened, a trickle of blood running down her chin. Pain dug its claws into her, tearing viciously. Shuri yelled and tried to scramble out from __underneath him, but he pinned her down, teeth bared. Then a blast of red light hit him in the side, enveloping him and hurling him backwards into a wall. T'Challa crumpled against it, his breathing jerky and uneven. _

_Shuri pressed her hand over her abdomen, feeling hot blood well up around her fingers, as Wanda rushed to her side, lifting her using the same red light and carrying her over to Stephen. She tried to block out the pain, but the tears seeping from her eyes betrayed her. _

_"It's okay, Shuri," Stephen assured her, green light forming intricate lines, whorls and patterns around his hands as he prepared to heal the injury. Shuri gasped in pain again - she had never been one for combat, and although she wasn't squeamish, she had never been good with intense pain - as Stephen placed his own hands over the deep, ragged gashes and closed his eyes. _

_Shuri exhaled. The pain and the gashes were gone._

* * *

Emma looked down at the unconscious woman. Thor was staring at her with, if it was possible, even more incredulity.

"Loki...?" he murmured, standing up and gathering her in his arms. "Banner, he - she's barely got a pulse! We need to get help!" Bruce, startled, helped Loki onto the other bed in the infirmary and inserted IVs carrying fluids into her arm, and pretty soon the reassuring beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor started up. Emma got up, walked over to Loki, and stared into the sleeping woman's face.

"I can see... similarities." she said, looking up at Thor. "Loki said that he was my mother. I understand now."

Thor's eyes widened. "You are part Frost Giant? I thought you were Midgardian."

"Is she a Frost Giant?"

Thor nodded, swinging his axe in a nervous manner. "Yes."

* * *

Loki woke up two days later, at three o'clock in the morning. Outside the window, the slowly rising rim of the sun was beginning to tint the horizon rose-coloured, and the silhouette of a girl was sitting in a chair beside her, her right arm glinting metallically.

"Where..." Loki coughed, her voice cracked and dry as ancient paper from two days of no speech. Emma reached towards her, holding a glass of water; Loki took it without comment, gulping down the liquid greedily. "Where am I?"

"The Avengers compound. You came here two days ago, unconscious. You travelled from the Soul World, didn't you?"

Loki nodded cautiously.

Emma continued. "You're my mother, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice rose to a shout, and broke when she reached _tell me_. "I... I thought I had murdered my mother, all this time!"

"I... I'm sorry." The inadequate apology was all Loki could manage. She saw Emma's face harden against the tears springing to her eyes. For a second, Loki thought that she was going to hit her.

"I hate you." Emma whispered coldly. She stood up, turned on her heel and started to walk away. Loki closed her eyes, knowing what was going to happen to the girl as soon as she reached the door.

Emma stopped dead. Her body began to shake. Her fists clenched. "Am I cursed?" she whispered, her voice full of fearful uncertainty.

"No."

Emma didn't turn around. "What am I?" she asked, a little louder.

"You are my daughter."

Emma turned, striding towards Loki. Her face and left arm - any bit of exposed skin - were blue, cobalt blue, and her cheekbone was marked with a symbol like a circle with a rune in the centre; the mark looked like it had been branded there, viciously burned into her skin. Her eyes were a ruddy, bloody crimson. It suited her, the apocalyptic glare in her eyes, the blue skin looking almost healthy next to her metal arm and the metal part of her face. She looked more like Nebula than ever.

"I'm more than that," she hissed. She reached down, grabbing Loki by the throat and shoving her against the wall. "WHAT AM I?" she screamed. Loki's eyes bulged, her pale face slowly turning blue, although from oxygen deprivation rather than her Jotunheim heritage.

"Emma..." she rasped. "Please..."

Emma let her down with a look of disgust. Loki slid down the wall, gasping for breath like a fish drowning in air, the heart monitor beside her bed beeping wildly, out of control. Slowly, it calmed. Loki looked up at her daughter, an almost pleading look in her green eyes.

"Go on, then," Emma said dispassionately. "What am I?"

Loki shook her head. "I can't tell you that, not yet. You aren't ready. Your father..."

"TELL ME!" Emma shouted, her fists clenching, her face twisting in anger. At her feet, the floor began to disintegrate, affected by her ability. "Tell me." she whispered.

* * *

**Thankyou for reading this, and I'm really sorry for the delay. I had four teeth taken out recently and have been very sore for the last few days. Please tell me if you like the story, and also here's a little mini-episode - an end-credit scene, if you like! Read on:**

* * *

_Stan had not known where he was for a second. He saw the fingers of his hand disintegrating, but couldn't quite __believe what was happening. "No..." he whispered, "It wasn't supposed to be like this."_

_He had opened his eyes in a long, grey corridor. Lying on the ground next to him was a bedraggled, trampled, torn comic book. He picked it up; turned the pages, but after the first one - an old, white-haired man wearing glasses slowly disintegrating at his desk - it was blank. Stan stared down the grey corridor. "Hello?" he called. "Is anyone there?"_

_"Mr Stark? Mr Stark, is that you?" A boy's voice answered him. Stan began to walk down the corridor towards the source of it. _

_A young man - more of a boy, really - was stumbling down the corridor, limping, holding his side and trying to stop the bleeding, his face crusted with dried blood from a cut on his forehead, but he was still recognisable. _

_"Peter? Peter Parker?" Stan caught the kid as he stumbled again and almost fell. _

_"D-Do I know you?" Peter muttered. "Where's Mr Stark?"_

_"Hey - hey, kid, calm down. My name's Stan. Stan Lee. I... I created you." Stan helped the boy sit down, with his back against the wall. He tried to figure out how to stop the kid bleeding, then remembered that he'd given Peter enhanced healing. _

_Peter grinned half-heartedly, waiting for the bleeding to stop. "So... are you like my grandfather?"_

_Stan considered this. "I guess so. I wrote you. I wrote what would happen here."_

_Peter's face went pale. His eyes hardened. "You did this? You decided who lived and who died here? You made Mr Stark watch me die?"_

_Stan nodded. "I'm so sorry, Peter. I really am."_

_Peter stood up abruptly. "This is your fault, Mr Lee." He turned, and thought his side was no longer bleeding, the metal of his suit was shining with blood. Peter gave Stan a single contemptuous glare and began to walk away from Stan. _

_"Don't go!" Stan yelled, then broke into a fit of hacking coughs that hurt his throat. "Don't leave me here! Please... I didn't want to leave, either!" he shouted after Peter's retreating figure. "I didn't want to go!" Peter froze, at the end of the corridor. _

_"None of us did, Mr Lee," he called. "You were the one who made us leave."_

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	9. Another Update

Author Update

**Hi everyone! I won't be able to write for the next week or so as I am going camping, so I will try to update as soon as possible after I get back! In the meantime, have an awesome summer ****holiday!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	10. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: **FORGOTTEN STORIES**

* * *

**Thankyou to everyone who has read this - 166 people, wow! Now I need to ****apologise for not updating - I have been camping and on holiday and I was not allowed to take my computer, and I am also trying to write a book and three fanfics at once. Please cut me some slack. **

**Katie Trillion xx**

* * *

_Wake me up inside_  
_Wake me up inside_  
_Call my name and save me from the dark_  
_Bid my blood to run_  
_Before I come undone_  
_Save me from the nothing I've become_

_Bring me to life_  
_Bring me to life_

_Frozen inside, without your touch_  
_Without your love, darling_  
_Only you are my life_  
_Among the dead_

_Bring Me To Life_, by Evanescence

* * *

Loki gave Emma a deeply saddened look. "I'm sorry, Emma. I really am." Then green light flickered around her fingers. Darkness swamped her.

_Emma was dreaming. _

_At least she fervently _hoped _that she was dreaming. If this was the Soul World... well, the surviving souls were going to get a smack upside the head. _

_She was back; back at HYDRA. Emma was sitting, hugging her knees to her chest, her face streaked with tears. An American man, with dark hair and stubble and cruel eyes, was sitting cross-legged behind her, plaiting her hair (it had been much longer then) so that it hung down her back. Then he had walked in front of her, knelt down and tucked the shorter locks of her hair behind her ears with one hand. _

_His smile had been shark-like, predatory. His other hand had been cupping the side of her face. His skin was rough, calloused and scarred. _

_Emma remembered that his name was Rumlow, and that he was important. He was also interested in her, checked on her constantly, even more than the doctors or the __psychologists, the scientists that studied her. Rumlow seemed to love watching her scream, as well. _

_He had stood in the background, only his face visible through the thick mats of shadow that swathed the room, his sharp eyes trained on the arc of the whip through the air, then on the blood running into the drain in the floor. _

_Then the dream changed. Emma was strapped into the mind-wipe contraption, her arms and legs held still with thick bands of metal, a piece of curved greenish plastic shoved into her mouth, presumably to stop her biting off her tongue._

_Another man, not Rumlow, had come to see her. He was youngish, maybe in his twenties, with light brown hair, white skin and dark eyes, troubled, almost fractured. She felt that if she pushed this man, the consequences would be of terrifying proportions. "Good afternoon, Medea," he said. He spoke in soft Russian. "My name is Mr Zemo. Helmut Zemo."_

_Emma nodded, not being able to speak through the mouth __guard. Zemo knelt down next to her. "You know," he said conversationally, "You are a most interesting young woman, Medea. I'd like to see you against my people. My Eko Scorpions." _

_That was how Emma had ended up against five people, all very much capable of beating up the Winter Soldier. She spun, curling into a ball, rolling under one of the men and coming up on the other side of him. She turned the air around his face into plastic and he collapsed, choking, slowly suffocating. Then another of them, a woman, locked her arm around Emma's throat and squeezed. Emma kicked upwards, twisting, wrapping her legs around the woman's torso and wriggling out of her hold. Then, with her hands on the woman's knees, upside down, Emma flicked her legs up, propelling herself upwards and over. Her foot crushed the woman's face, then one of the men grabbed her ankle and brought her down, smacking her hard against the floor. Emma felt her nose break, coppery blood running into her mouth. _

_Emma turned the molecules of the floor to liquid with a thought, forcing a deep depression into the floor like a pool, and the man and the rest of the Scorpions slithered and floundered, choking as water filled their open mouths. Trails of blood laced their way through the water, graceful reddish curls like locks of hair. Emma Then one of the women reached up as one of the men grabbed Emma around the waist, dragging her under. _

_Water flooded her lungs. She __panicked, thrashing, kicking, but other Scorpions pinioned her arms and legs. _

_The woman stabbed her in the side. _

_More blood coloured the water in swirls of crimson, and the world around Emma melted away..._

_The dream changed, twisted again. Instead of a dagger, glassy spikes were piercing her all over, scratching uselessly at her metal arm, stabbing into her flesh, pushing her tongue up, exiting through her cheek. The smiling, disfigured face of Ebony Maw stared down at her, smiling._

_"Please, Father," she whispered, as Thanos's hulking figure came closer and closer, until she could see his face. "Please help me..."_

* * *

Emma woke up. She still felt the pain of Ebony Maw's spikes, still heard his cold laughter. She sat up, trying to clear her head.

"Emma?" Loki's voice, concerned, almost motherly, reached her. The goddess's face swam into view in front of her, her face pale, her hand reaching out to help Emma back to her feet. "Emma, I'm sorry. I can't tell you. It would only hurt you more."

"Do you think I care if it hurts?" Emma screamed, white-hot anger flooding her. "I'm sick of secrets and lies! I just want to know the _truth _for once!" The air around her trembled, the floor around her feet began to crack and disintegrate. Emma glared, her eyes glinting dangerously. Her metal fist clenched. Around Loki's legs, the air flickered, then solid stone encased her up to her calves.

Loki froze.

"Tell the truth!" Emma shouted, a ringing command.

"I told you before, Emma." Loki's voice was inexplicably steady. "I won't. I don't want to see you fall apart."

"What, you suddenly love me now?" Scorn laced Emma's words with poison. She advanced. "Nobody loved me. Nobody ever has!"

"Not true," Loki smiled, a faint echo of her old smile - joyous and crazy and laced with poisonous laughter. "Don't you remember Pietro? And the other?"

"What other? What are you talking about?" Her voice was unBut Emma did remember, despite the mind-wipes, and at the back of her mind, a long-buried memory stirred. "I... How did you know, Loki?"

Loki smiled again, despite the fact that she was still trapped. "I can get in your head. Do you want to see?"

Emma's hands trembled. She stumbled backwards, crumbling in on herself, sliding down the wall and curling up, hugging her knees and hiding her face. A tear ran, sparkling like crystal, down her cheek. Many more had gathered, a silent, transparent crowd, at the corners of her eyes.

* * *

_There had been a girl, _Emma remembered, _in a similar machine to her own. The girl had long dark hair that fell to her shoulders in once-glossy waves; now it was tangled and matted with dried blood. Her skin was dark, dark by genes and by the grime that covered every inch of both of them. _

_The scientists had taken their mouthguards out, and left them there. _

_Emma struggled to turn her head in the restraints, then looked over at the girl. She seemed to be unconscious. _

_"Hey," Emma said, her voice a croaky whisper, "You awake?"_

_"Yes." The girl sounded English, like her. She met Emma's eyes, and her own were black as ebony. Her hair was white, unnaturally so. Emma guessed that it was from what HYDRA had done - she thought it was called Marie Antoinette Syndrome. _

_"I'm Emma. What's your name?"_

_"Akela. But _they _call me Artemis. You're Medea." Akela's hand twitched, and in the dim, greenish light Emma saw that the girl's filthy nails were ragged, ripped and torn, one missing completely. _

_"Are you okay?" _

_"Does it look like I'm okay?" Sarcasm bit at the syllables. Akela scowled at her. _

_"Sorry." Emma bit her lip. _

_"It's - it's okay."_

_After that, they were quiet. The scientists came back and unlocked Akela from the machine, before dragging her exhausted body away. The foreboding silhouette of the Winter Soldier followed behind them. _

_Soon after, screams echoed back the steel-lined __corridor back to Emma._

* * *

_The cell had two sections; a place to sleep and a tiny bathroom. Other than that, they were almost all brick, the door thick metal, and had a small, barred window in one side. Emma was sitting hunched up against one wall, as far away from the hulking steel door as she could get, almost cringing away from it. Her back was bleeding, trails of drying blood leading away from the door towards her. _

_Emma was sobbing quietly. She couldn't get the image of the Soldier's cold eyes out of her head. _

_"Emma?" Akela's face was pressed up against the bars. "Emma, can you hear me?"_

_Shivering, Emma turned her tear-streaked face towards her. "Yes. I can hear you."_

_"I... Has the bleeding stopped yet?"_

_Emma shook her head. "No. It'll stop eventually though." She turned away, revealing that the back of her black t-shirt was a ripped mess of ragged fabric and bloody gashes that were only just beginning to scab over. _

_"Emma!" Akela's voice was louder, more urgent than before. "Come over here."_

_Slowly, stumbling and limping and swearing under her breath, Emma managed to get to her feet, bracing her metal arm against the grimy, scum-covered wall for support. She limped over to the bars, still holding onto the wall. Her legs were bloody as well, as though the Winter Soldier had whipped her all over, not just her back. _

_"Good. Turn around." Akela wriggled her hands through the bars, managing to get both arms through. Slowly, trying to ignore Emma's winces and occasional soft cries of pain, Akela ran her hands over the wounds in Emma's flesh, healing them into thick white scar tissue. She sighed wearily when she was done. _

_Emma seemed to be in shock. "Th-Thankyou," she mumbled. "I... you can heal."_

_Akela nodded, preoccupied with wriggling her arms back through the bars into her own cell. Emma grinned, and used her ability to turn the bars to slag, leaving a gap in the wall where the bars had been._

_"Thanks," the other girl pulled her arms back into her own cell and grinned at her, despite the fact that she was struggling to keep her eyes open. She might have continued her sentence, then the door burst open, clanging against the wall and clattering with a noise like chattering teeth. Silhouetted in the doorway was the unmistakeable, looming figure of the Winter Soldier, the light illuminating his metal arm. He marched to Akela, grabbed her upper arm and dragged her out of the cell and down the corridor. Akela seemed to exhausted to react, even as the rough concrete grazed and scratched her bare arms. As her face was illuminated in the sliver of sickly light from the open doorway, Emma saw a long scar that sliced across her face from her right eye to the corner of her mouth, puckered at the edges and pulling at Akela's eye, dragging at her mouth. _

_Then the door closed, damning the cell to darkness._

* * *

_Akela looked down at the woman, who was wearing the rags of a S.H.I.E.L.D uniform, her green-dyed hair singed at the ends. Her face was decorated with a plethora of cuts, multi-coloured bruises and dried blood. _

_"Go on," Rumlow prompted. "What happens now?"_

_One of the scientists bustled over to him, his white coat flapping like bedraggled wings behind him. "Well," he instructed the Soldier to yank Akela to her feet, and the Soldier seemed to know what to do next. Clearly, this particular ritual had been performed many times before. The Soldier then cuffed her unresisting body to the wall, metal rings securing around her wrists and ankles, her exhausted, almost limp form supported entirely by the metal. Bright lights shone down from the ceiling, illuminating her limbs. _

_Akela was covered in scars from her neck to her ankles, some just thin pale lines, others still raw, weeping and clearly infected._

_The Soldier drew a knife from his belt, slowly, almost lovingly, had not the brainwashing shattered his emotions. The sliver of gleaming metal descended inexorably towards the girl's upper arm. The Soldier bent his head down too, almost as though he were whispering in her ear._

_Akela winced as the knife slashed across her arm, shivering as she felt the Soldier's cold breath on her ear. Blood from a myriad of other cuts was already trickling down her arm. The Soldier's arm slipped around her waist, supporting her as her body began to go limp again. _

_As he moved the knife to her other arm, Akela felt her emotions begin to curdle and vanish into blackness, blankness like the bottom of a deep pool, tiny, shining fish - memories, feelings, fears - hurrying, flashing away from it, allowing it to fill her up. She closed her eyes. _

_When she opened them again, she was Artemis, the Huntress._

_The Soldier released her, and she stalked to the still-unconscious prisoner. Artemis laid a hand on the woman's cheek, and she jerked away, her body twisting, her face contorting in pain. Her leg broke with a wet _snap, _and she screamed, a piercing, agonised cry. _

_Rumlow's expression changed from bored to impressed. "Her ability works both ways, then?"_

_The scientist nodded, looking relieved._

* * *

_Emma waited for Akela to come back. _

_Finally, the sounds of someone being dragged along the corridor reached her. Akela was casually thrown back into her cell, and for a second Emma thought she was dead - and she could't understand where her __relief came from when she saw that the girl was breathing. _

_"Akela?" she whispered. The girl groaned, shifting a little, turning her scarred face in the direction of Emma's voice. "Akela!" _

_"Emma..." Emma looked closer and saw that the girl's body was covered in fresh cuts. _

_"Akela, what happened to you?" _

_"Artemis. It wasn't me, it was Artemis..." Akela murmured. She began to shakily to climb to her feet. _

It wasn't me, it wasn't me, it was Medea... _Emma remembered the words. _

_"Emma?" Akela was clutching at the hole in the wall for support, reaching through it. Obligingly, Emma hugged her, feeling the girl's skinny form shaking, sticky blood gathering on her skin._

_"It'll be okay," Akela promised. Her arms reached up further, encircling Emma's neck, bringing her face closer. _

_When they kissed, the cells that contained them vanished. For a few precious, fleeting seconds, both of them were happy._

* * *

_The next time Emma saw Akela again, the girl stumbled through the door, sobbing and bleeding from deep whiplashes across her back. Blood was seeping from between her legs as well._

_"Akela!" Emma shouted, running to the hole. "Akela, what - what -" _

_Akela stumbled to her, her nails scraping the edges of the hole. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide and filled with tears. "Emma -" and she began sobbing again, and Emma could only reach through and carefully pat her shoulders, trying to not to touch the bleeding gashes on Akela's back, piecing together what had happened. _

_"Emma - it was - th-the Soldier - the scientists were testing - new brainwashing technique - s-seeing if he would react t-to being t-told to -" Akela half-collapsed, her sobs echoing around the cells. "I'm - I'm scared - wh-what if... I have a b-baby?"_

_"It'll be okay," Emma promised, disgusted with HYDRA and herself and the Winter Soldier. "It'll be okay."_

* * *

Nine Months Later:

_"Let me in! Let me in there!" Emma yelled, trying to get past the soldiers who were guarding the room where Akela was giving birth. Emma could hear her screams, and just fought harder, ruthlessly using her training. _

_Then the Winter Soldier grabbed her arms, and pulled her away, still screaming and kicking. One of the scientists whispered in her ear - "You'll be let in there, alright."_

_Emma had just one second to remember - _new brainwashing technique - _before __her emotions turned to slag._

* * *

_Medea walked into the room, where Akela lay, bloody and tired, but well, on a metal table. She was cradling her baby - her _daughter _\- in her arms, and was, despite everything that had happened, smiling. _

_Medea reached over. _

_"Emma? Do you want to hold her?" _

_A false, almost reptilian smile spread across Medea's face. "Yes, please." Something in her voice must have alert Akela. _

_"Emma?" she said uncertainly. "Is - is that you?" _

_Medea kept the smile from sliding. "Of course." The lies slithered like snakes between her teeth. She took the baby in her arms. _

_And broke its neck._

* * *

**Sorry for this! Please ****review!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	11. Chapter 9

Infinity War/Endgame Chapter Nine

* * *

**Author's Note: Sorry for not updating, I was on holiday and trying to write three fanfics and a book at the same time. I don't know when I will be able to update again as I am going back to school soon.**

* * *

_The devil's got a hold on me__  
__Making me do bad things__  
__Just so I can find relief__  
__Got me praying on my knees__  
__Looking up to God__  
__To cure me of this one disease__  
__I'll do anything to take the pain away__  
__Can somebody just tell me that it's going to be okay__  
__The devil's got a hold on me__  
__And every night I ask him__  
__When he's going to set me free_

_Set Me Free_, by Nico Collins

* * *

"_Emma!" Akela screamed. _

_Medea dropped the body of the baby onto the floor, where it lay in a crumpled, fragile heap of tiny arms and legs. _

"_I'm sorry," she said, but the words were insincere. She advanced a little closer, slipping the knife delicately from her sleeve. _

"_Emma, Emma, please, don't do this," Akela scrambled back along the metal table, before staggering a little, pressing herself against the wall, her hands raised to protect her face. _

_As Medea came closer, her training kicked in, and she blocked the stabs with her forearms, costing her deep gashes trickling crimson over her hands, but the end was never in doubt. _

_Medea never used the knife, she just locked her metal fingers around Akela's throat and squeezed mercilessly. _

"_Emma – please –" her voice was cut off as Medea squeezed tighter. She couldn't hear the girl's words now, not let them distract her, when she was so close to completing her mission – _

Snap.

_Emma let go of Akela's neck. The girl's head lolled to one side, her eyes still open and staring. She slumped to the ground beside her dead child, her pure-white hair splayed around her head like a perverse halo. Emma screamed, but she couldn't hear her own voice over the rushing sound in her ears and the thudding of her heart. She dropped to her knees beside her, her hands scrabbling at Akela's neck and wrists, desperate to find the pulse that was so prominent in her own veins. _

_No, no, no, she could not be dead, she couldn't be, it couldn't be her fault – _

_Hot tears splashed down her cheeks, falling into Akela's eyes and pouring down the dead girl's cheeks. _

_Emma's breathing was coming in short gasps, a firestorm terror and denial rushing through her mind. Then the feelings were replaced by icy, empty, hollow realisation, like a white plain with the mocking voice of the wind whistling through the air. _

_It was your fault._

_All your fault._

* * *

Emma screamed. She was curled in a ball on the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks, her body spasming and shaking. The floor around her was disintegrating and cracking, fracturing like a glacier until Loki had barely anything to stand on.

She bent down next to Emma, her black hair falling to shield her face, but tears dripped down her face and onto the floor as well.

"Emma? Emma, can you hear me?"

Emma's eyes opened, her eyelashes pearly with tears, like an oil slick, polluting laughter, poisoning happiness. "A…Akela?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from crying. "Akela?"

"Ssh, ssh," Loki crooned, as though Emma was a child to be consoled. She gathered the girl's lanky body in her arms, cradling her and stroking her hair. "It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Emma seemed to remember where she was. She looked up at Loki, too devastated to be angry just yet. "Why does it hurt so much?" she asked, sobs racking her frame again.

"Because it was real," Loki said. "Because you loved her."

Emma scrambled away from her, the floor re-forming as she touched it. Her tears and terror were fading, to be replaced with terrible anger. The dust from the disintegrating floor rose up around her, and she ripped the metal from the walls, the plaster spilling their shining guts onto the floor. Twisting them around Loki's struggling body, she pulled them tighter, to the point where Loki's ribs were almost crushed. Blood trickled from the goddess's lips, a gash opened on her cheek, so deep that Emma could see the white of her teeth through the cut as she advanced towards her.

"Mother," she said, almost formally, "I hate you. I hate you for making me exist. I am your fault. My ruined life, it's your fault."

"No, Emma," Loki answered, her voice soft, blood still trickling from her mouth and one nostril. "The events in your life were not my fault, but others. Sometimes yours."

Emma's face went white, her features suffused with fury. "No! It was you! All you!" She grabbed Loki's hair and the goddess cried out as she slammed the back of her head into the wall, blood smearing across the white paint. Then Emma's metal fist came up and punched her in the face. Pain exploded cross Loki's face, coppery blood pouring into her mouth from her broken and crushed nose.

Emma manipulated the metal surrounding Loki so that the goddess slid down the wall, slumping against it.

"Emma, please –" Loki tried, but Emma pushed her to the ground, twisted her arm behind her back and broke it.

Loki screamed.

Emma snarled at her, "You know you deserve this, Mother." Then she turned away, intending to walk out, although to where she didn't know.

Then she froze, her mouth hanging open. The blood drained from her features, and the Soul Stone in her forehead pulsed and glowed. Then it faded to grey, and disappeared from her skin – simply gone.

Standing in a silent crowd behind them were a crowd of people; Bucky, Peter, Wanda, Groot, Stephen, Shuri, T'Challa, Drax, Scott, Hope, Mantis, Peter Quill, Maria Hill, Nick Fury, and many more.

Emma screamed. "No! You can't be real! You can't!"

Bucky took a step forwards, Peter following close behind, although both were limping a little and bleeding from various cuts.

Emma backed away, her hands held in front of her. "Go – go away!" It frightened her, terrified her, how quiet they were. She could by their eyes that they were cured of the disease, but the flashes of memory – Akela's frantic, terrified sobbing, the blood that had seeped from between her legs, the wet snap of the baby's neck breaking – made her even more scared of Bucky.

"Can you remember?" She shouted, her words spears. "Can you remember what you did to her? To Akela?"

Bucky was close now, she could smell the stink of sweat and blood pouring off him, hear the soft creak of his metal arm.

"Stop!" she yelled, her voice high and shrill in panic. She threw up her hands and ice poured from her fingers, forming a thick wall of sapphire crystal.

"Emma?" Bucky said. "Are you okay?" She could tell by his voice that his concern for her was genuine.

"Go away!" she screamed again.

"Emma?" A different voice now, younger, nervous – it was Peter. She could see the teenager through the wall of ice, his costume tinted purple by the blue of the ice and his image warped and twisted. "Please. Let us in. We won't hurt you. I promise."

"No!" she yelled back. Spikes began to grow from the ice, and Bucky and Peter stumbled back, but Peter was slow and the spike impaled him through his shoulder.

The boy screamed in pain. Emma remembered that Peter was younger than she was, and had endured so much pain.

"Peter!" Bucky yelled, then the door crashed open and Tony ran inside, also shouting Peter's name. Tony's face was white, his normally fit body starved-looking, his hair dishevelled and dirty, his clothing ripped, but he was alive.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU STUPID B*TCH?" Tony screamed. He ran to Peter's side, the boy was moaning and struggling, blood staining the spike of ice and the fabric of his suit. "Mr Stark… Mr… Stark…" he whispered, tears spilling from his eyes. His face was alabaster pale apart from the smears of blood. He was shaking with shock and pain.

"Hey, hey, kid, it's okay, listen to me, it's okay, it's okay, kid," Tony felt a terrifying sense of déjà vu, and, slowly, carefully, with Peter moaning and crying out, he eased him off the spike if ice and lay him on the floor.

"Bucky, go get Bruce. NOW."

Bucky charged out of the door, yelling: "Banner! Get up!"

The barrier of ice melted back into air, revealing Emma. Her anger had melted like the ice back into choked sobs. She scrambled to Peter's side, but Tony knocked her back, hitting her across the face.

"Get back! You caused this!" Tony was crying, cradling Peter, the boy's blood staining his hands. The spike of ice had gone almost all the way through his shoulder, creating a bloody, half-crushed hole that was bleeding heavily. Tony could see the white fragments of Peter's smashed collarbone and the red-pink of twisted muscle embedded deep in the wound.

"I can heal him, you idiot!" Emma yelled back, her face as pale as Peter's, her eyes still red and swollen from crying. "Let me save him!"

Still weeping and trying to console Peter, Tony let Emma come closer and lay her hands on Peter's shoulder. The boy was gasping, going into shock, and the best Emma could do for him was ease him into unconsciousness.

"There," she said softly, stepping back from the boy. Tony was still kneeling next to him, brushing the boy's unruly hair away from his face. "He'll be okay."

Tony looked at her, grudgingly thankful. "How did you get me here? I was stranded in space. I was dying."

Emma tried to remember. In her anger, the now-gone Soul Stone had reacted by pulling all souls that she was linked to straight to her. "I had access to your soul, Mr Stark," she answered haltingly. "I pulled you here. I'm sorry."

Then Bruce, dishevelled, in his pyjamas, unshaven and with his hair tangled, charged into the room, followed by Bucky.

"What the hell –" he managed, pawing at the stitch in his side.

"It's alright," Tony said, getting up. "We've got it sorted."

Bruce staggered backwards, his eyes widening in shock. "T-Tony? How the hell did you get here?"

"Never mind."

Then Emma came up behind him, locked her metal hand around his throat and slammed him into the floor.

Tony jerked, a spray of blood escaping his lips. _Cr*p_, he thought, through the pain in his ribs and back. _Mood swings. All that pain, she has to let it out somehow. _

"Emma!" Bruce yelled. "Calm down!"

Emma twisted Tony's arm behind his back. Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, and her flesh hand was trembling.

"Why did you hate me? WHY?" she shouted. Everything was pouring out of her now, all the anger, pain, hurt and fear, reacting to the forced memories of Akela, the girl she couldn't save.

* * *

**Sorry for the short chapter, but thankyou for reading! Please review!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	12. Chapter 10

Infinity War Chapter Ten: **A CLASH OF PERSONALITIES**

* * *

**Hi everyone! Thankyou for being unbelievably patient, you are amazing! This is the second-to-penultimate chapter (I think) so enjoy!**

* * *

_Save me _

_I'm a prisoner  
I'm a prisoner of my mind  
Sometimes I set my soul on fire  
Trying to find the light  
Or anything to bring me back to life_

_Maybe  
Tomorrow  
I'll find the strength to hold my hand  
Saying  
I'll break out  
Of all the chains that lock me in my head_

_And hopefully I'll turn around  
And heal the scars that weigh me down  
The ones I never show  
I've lost control_

_Prisoner, _by Nico Collins

* * *

"Why do you hate me? WHY?" Emma twisted Tony's arm further.

"I don't –"

"You told me I was better off dead! Do you remember that?" Emma snarled.

"I – yes. I'm sorry."

Loki, still sprawled a little way across the floor, stirred. She healed her broken nose easily, but her arm was beyond her meagre skills. She struggled into a sitting position, pushing her bloody hair out of her face with her good hand, and said:

"Emma, why do you deny who you are? You push away what you can't handle and take out your anger on innocents; you act like a child; petulant, jealous, breaking things without any purpose or point. You're so volatile, you're a danger to everyone around you; look at what you've done today. And you ask why Tony hates you? I should hate you. We should all hate you, Emma."

Loki managed to rise to her feet, and Hope van Dyne ran forwards to support her as she stumbled to where Emma had let go of Tony and was staring at her mother, her face shocked, but Loki knew that it would quickly be consumed by inevitable denial and anger.

"But we don't hate you, Emma," Loki said, "For all that you've done, we still are willing to accept you."

"Why did you make me see Akela then?" Emma's voice broke a little when she uttered the name.

"I…" Loki managed to stand on her own, pushing Hope away. "I was scared of you. I thought you were going to kill me." she laughed bitterly, glancing at her broken, bloodied arm, "Stupid idea."

Emma got up, walked up to Loki, and touched her broken arm. Loki winced as the bones ground together as they healed.

"Th –"

Emma wrapped her arms around Loki, acknowledging her as real family for the first time. Loki could tell from the way Emma's shoulder's shook that the young woman was sobbing.

"Help me," Emma whispered. "For God's sake, help me."

* * *

Steve and Natasha had been assigned the job of getting everybody settled into the Avengers compound again; many had never seen the place before and maps had to be provided for the benefit of T'Challa, Shuri, the Guardians, and Hope and Scott.

Steve had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was dishevelled, and it was clear that he hadn't slept a wink.

Nat found him in the kitchen, nursing a mug of -tea.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Steve looked up. "No. It's just so… overwhelming. Everybody just being… _back._"

Natasha pulled up a chair and sat down, crossing her long legs. She hid a wide yawn behind her hand.

Steve sipped his tea. "Last night… I dreamt of Bucky falling from that train. I thought, _what if that had just been the end_, Nat? Simple, quick… but not easy."

Natasha brushed a stray curl of red hair behind her ear, before she steepled her fingers thoughtfully. "Steve, death isn't easy to get over. Not even if the dead person in question comes back. And as for the Snap…"

"Damn the Snap." Steve muttered bitterly. "But… I guess, since they're back now, it – it doesn't – doesn't matter anymore."

Natasha could hear the jerking breaks in his voice that signified held-back tears, and Steve's hand, clutching his tea mug, was trembling.

"Steve," she said softly, "It does matter. People across the world watched their friends and family disintegrate. The shock of that hasn't faded."

Steve nodded. He sipped his tea again, but stayed silent. Natasha stood up.

"I'm going for a walk, since I'm up. Want to come with?"

Steve shook his head, pushing his tea and standing up. "I'm going to find Bucky. We need to talk about what happened while he was… gone."

* * *

Natasha was sitting by herself in one of her favourite hidey-holes – a clump of trees near the edge of the Avengers compound that allowed her to see everyone that came in and out.

The leaves whispered around her, light dappling her body. There was no one around at this time in the morning, and it was enjoyable to have nobody near, shouting or moaning or incessantly chattering.

"Morning."

Loki materialised from a tree, her graceful form morphing out of the trunk. She looked almost immaculate, but there were faint dark circles under her eyes and her right arm was still sore.

Natasha turned, her hand automatically reaching for the knife concealed in her belt. She didn't relax, even as Loki inclined her head courteously, inviting Natasha to sit down on the grass.

Reluctantly, Natasha sat. "You want to talk, I presume?"

Loki nodded, conjuring a steaming mug with a flick of her wrist and a flash of green light. She seemed perfectly relaxed apart from her hands, which were shaking slightly. Her green eyes skimmed over Natasha, studying her.

"Natasha. You were the one who volunteered to whip Emma when she first came to the Avengers. Do you think she might… open up to you?" There was real concern in Loki's voice; despite all appearances, she cared for Emma.

"I doubt it. But we could try. You… the things you said yesterday, Loki. She's not going to be happy with you."

"I know."

"How are you going to… fix her?"

Loki pushed her hair out of her eyes again. She licked her lips uncertainly. "I don't know, Natasha. I… what I said… I know that it's true. If she gets angry again and we can't restrain her, I can't guarantee everybody's safety."

Natasha bit her lip. "I guess we just have to talk to her, and see how it goes."

* * *

"Bucky?" Steve, his footsteps light so as not to wake the other people in their respective rooms. He pushed open the door but didn't walk inside.

"Steve?" Bucky was sitting on his bed, a little hunched, his head bowed. "You can come in."

"I thought we should talk." Steve walked into the room, pulled up a chair and sat down. "You?"

"Yeah." Bucky looked at Steve. "Did she tell you? Emma? About the things I did?" Bucky's metal hand clenched into a fist.

"A little," Steve raised an eyebrow slightly. "In the... Soul World? She told us about Peter. And... you." Steve bit his lip. He felt the anger at what Emma had done in the Soul World bubbling up inside him, and he tried to suppress it. He knew that it was not exactly Emma's fault.

"It's just... God, Steve, I don't know how to say any of this..." Bucky fiddled with his hands, and bit his lip. "Dammit."

"Buck, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to," Steve said. "It's in the past now. I want to focus on the future."

Bucky looked Steve straight in the eyes - clear, honest blue meeting the colour of a roiling, stormy ocean. "You - You're sure? I... Dammit, Steve," he muttered again. "I need to talk, but..."

Steve put a hand on his friend's arm. "It's okay, Buck. Like I said, we're focusing on the future now." He half-smiled, uncomfortable but trying to comfort at the same time. "It's okay."

* * *

Tony was sitting next to Peter's bed, sprawled in a wheelchair. The boy was still unconscious, an IV in his arm feeding him fluids. But he was stable. The only indication of his injury was the ragged hole in the metal of his suit. Underneath there was nothing but whole, pale skin. Tony had fallen asleep at some point, his head lolling. He had at least eaten something, and Bruce had given him a check up and some pills to take, but other than fatigue it seemed that Tony was fairly well.

"Mr - Mr Stark?" Peter's voice was a little slurred, but definitely there.

Tony blinked. In the blurred moments between sleeping and waking, the cloudy colours of a star-scattered nebula swirled across his vision.

"Mr Stark? Uh, are you awake?"

Tony opened his eyes fully to see Peter's worried face peering at him from the bed. The boy's hair was dirty and dishevelled, his cheeks sunken and fleshless, and there were dark, bruise-like circles under his eyes, but he was alive - alive and breathing, and reassuring _beep _of a heart monitor signifying his steady heartbeat. Bruce had done a good job patching him up though; the cuts and gashes on his face were clean and bandaged, and there was already a little colour in his face.

"Hey, Pete. It's - it's good to see you again." Tony felt tears prick his eyes, but he forced them not to fall.

Peter smiled. He was still a little woozy from painkillers, and the world was slightly blurred. "Thanks, Mr Stark."

"Peter, is everything... okay? What happened while I was gone?"

Peter's face went pale. His hands began to shake. The heart monitor began to _beep _crazily fast. "I-I can't remember, Mr Stark," he whispered, but Tony knew that the boy was lying.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me," Tony said, keeping his voice soft, "But... I thought you were dead, Peter. Every day I was stuck in that ship, the thought of you and Pepper - it felt so much worse than Emma carving this into my shoulder." He rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal the words Emma had cut into his flesh - slowly becoming puckered pink scar tissue, but there all the same. It read: _THIS IS PAIN_. Peter exhaled sharply at the sight of them. "I understand what those words mean now," Tony continued, "I know it only too well."

Tony wheeled himself a little closer to Peter, and held the boy's hand.

"I-I'm sorry," he said. "But I had to be sure - I had to know that you're not just a ghost."

* * *

Emma was sitting on her bed, her head bowed, reading a book.

Bruce watched her through the one-way glass. He had been doing this all morning, on and off, watching her. Recording what happened on the small camera fixed into one corner of Emma's room.

Bruce tapped gently on the glass. He hated doing it; it felt like tapping the glass in a zoo to get the animal inside to wake up.

Emma was suddenly next to the glass, her metal hand pressed up against it. Her fingers started scratching at it, causing thin screeches to echo around her room. Long, pale slashes appeared in the glass.

"Bruce." Her voice was disconcertingly calm. "Let me out."

"Emma, you know I can't."

Emma leant against the glass, her metal hand still scratching at it faintly. "You can see me. I can't see you. Where are you, Bruce?"

"Right here." Even though Bruce knew that Emma couldn't see him, he pressed his hand flat against the glass as well.

Emma's metal hand smashed straight through the glass, clenched around Bruce's wrist and yanked him through the glass in a sparkling corona of shattered glass shards like deadly snow. Her normal hand fastened around his throat and squeezed.

"FRIDAY," Bruce gasped, "Get – Stark –"

"Of course, sir," the AI answered. "Calling Mr Stark and associates now."

A few seconds later, Tony, a still-dishevelled Steve, Clint, Nat and Loki came charging through the door, swiftly followed by Bucky, who looked (if it was possible) absolutely terrified.

"Emma, get away from him!" Loki yelled, green light flickering around her hands.

"She's not going to. She's not in control," Bucky said. "I can tell."

"Then who is?" Loki whispered, the blood draining from her face.

"Medea," Bucky said. "Emma's lost control."

* * *

**Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, but I thought about it and decided on a cliffhanger! I will update when I can, but please be patient with me!**

**Thankyou for reading! Please review!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	13. Chapter 11

Infinity War Chapter 11: **IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME**

* * *

**Sorry for the wait, I've had a bunch of tests this week so I haven't had much time to write. Please enjoy!**

* * *

_Don't want you to blame yourself  
I'm the one that needs the help  
No, I won't stop you if you're willing to try  
If I were you I wouldn't keep my hopes high _

~_  
It's going to take a whole lot more  
Than drugs and a candy store  
To fix the hole that beats inside of my chest  
Can't bring something back to life once it's dead_

_It's a losing game, I'm not going to change  
No one could ever be winning my trust  
Guess that I resent the thought of sentiment_

_Numb, _Nico Collins

* * *

"You're right, Soldier." Medea said, addressing Bucky. Her metal hand relaxed, and Bruce sucked in a welcome breath. He scrambled weakly away from her, and Natasha helped him up.

Medea's face split into a smile. "Emma's lost control, Soldier. I'm free now." She laughed, and the sound was high and sharp, like shattering glass. It echoed around the room.

"Em – Medea." Loki's voice was shaking. She took a step forwards. The green light still flickered around her hands. "Medea, do you know who I am?"

"Mother." Medea inclined her head. Loki noticed that she was different from Emma in subtle ways – her posture was straighter, the way she moved was quieter. Her human eye was the same colour as Bucky's, but colder, not giving away a flicker of emotion. "I don't blame you," she said, keeping eye contact with Loki. "I was made to understand when things are my own fault," her head flicked around to stare at Bucky, "weren't we, Soldier?"

Bucky flinched a little, but nodded.

Loki took a deep breath, but didn't know what to say. All through history, every bad thing that had happened had been blamed on her, and now it wasn't her fault, for once in her life one thing wasn't blamed on her. "Thankyou," she said. She half-smiled, and stood up a little straighter.

Medea woke up. Light was dripping through the curtains in golden rivulets, illuminating the bland room – white walls, white ceiling, grey curtains. She hadn't dreamt, but a voice was still flitting through her head – screaming and crying out to Medea to give over to her. In Medea's mind, a cold male voice said: _Command 23: Never give up control. _

Almost directly after, Emma screamed:

_Let me out! Let me out now!_

"Shut UP!" Medea snarled. Emma quietened, and Medea forced her into the tiny space at the back of their shared mind that Medea had originally occupied.

She swung her legs off the bed, and got dressed quickly and silently, opening the door and stepping into the corridor. She had learned the art of being silent long time ago, and as she strode along the corridor, her feet sinking into the carpet, nobody heard her.

Except for one person.

"Morning, Medea." Bucky stepped out of the shadows. Medea didn't so much as flinch, coming to a smooth stop in front of him.

"You're up early," she observed coolly.

"It's a bad habit. Can't seem to shake it." Bucky bit his lip. Medea knew that he was referring to the perpetual crack-of-dawn wake-up time that they had both experienced in Sokovia.

Medea had memorised the map she had been given – another bad habit – and knew that if she took the next left turn and continued down the stairs she would come to the kitchen.

"Breakfast?" she offered. Their conversation, though casual, had felt stiff, stilted and awkward, each trying to convince the other that they were on speaking terms. As well as this, Medea hadn't the faintest idea

"Good call," he agreed, following her.

* * *

Steam unfurled seductive claws, trailing through the air and disappearing inside Medea's mouth as she took a sip of her tea, which Bucky had talked her through how to make.

She hadn't waited for the hot liquid to cool, but she grinned even as it burned her throat. All that Emma had ever eaten, even things like chocolate, was like sawdust to Medea – second hand, with all the life sucked out of it.

"Thanks, Bucky." It was the first time that she hadn't called him 'Soldier'.

Bucky nodded. He was sitting at the table, his slowly cooling mug of tea in front of him while Medea leant casually against the wall.

There was silence for a while.

"Bucky…" Medea said presently, "Are you… okay?"

"Uh-huh."

"Should I go wake up Steve?"

"No." Bucky knew that Steve would only be annoyed to have a half-human girl wake him at five-thirty in the morning. "It's fine."

Medea walked to the table, drew up a chair, and sat down. "It's not fine, is it?"

"I don't want to talk to _you_." Bucky stood up abruptly. The legs of his chair screeched as if in pain along the floor. His metal hand had clenched on the edge of the table, and Medea could see the wood being slowly crushed in his grip.

"I'll get Steve," she said, turning to leave. Suddenly she felt Bucky's iron grip on her upper arm. She instinctively tried to pull away, but it didn't help.

"I'm sorry," Bucky whispered. "Steve doesn't know about _her. _He can't know, he'd hate me if he knew."

Medea finally yanked her arm out of his grip. Anger was surging in her blood, but she tonedi t down automatically – _Command 34: Never show emotion. _"Her name's Akela. Call her Akela." There was still a spike of anger in her voice.

"_Akela._" Bucky almost breathed the name. "I was never… they never mentioned her real name. She was just a number. _Subject 03X_, they called her."

"Don't – she wasn't –" _Never show emotion. Never show emotion. _Medea could feel her feelings fighting against the rules that were ingrained into her mind, as much a part of her as her fingerprints.

She would not let her emotions take over. She would not be like Emma.

She would not be a failure.

"Medea –" Bucky's eyes widened in concern. "It's okay. I wasn't trying to –"

"SHUT UP! Just – just – shut up!"

Her breathing was coming in short , shocked gasps, her heart was thudding wildly, and in her mind Emma was still screaming: _Let me out! Let me out now!_

Medea tried to regain control – it was harder than forcing the tide to reverse, but she did it. Slowly, her breathing calmed. _Command 47: Always be a blank. _

"I'm… sorry, Soldier. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have shouted." Medea instinctively locked her metal hand around her flesh one and began to squeeze, tighter and tighter.

"Medea –" Bucky's eyes were fixed on her hand, but he didn't reach out to stop her – it was like he knew what was going on inside her head. "Medea – what are you doing?"

The bones began to grind together. Medea winced a little, it had been so long she had felt pain first-hand. _Command 1: Commands must be obeyed without question. Command 2: Deviation from commands means self-punishment._

"Right, stop, just stop –" Bucky pulled her metal hand off her crushed, twisted flesh one. Medea was breathing fast again. There was a single tear running down her face and blood dripped from her crushed hand.

"_No…_" she moaned softly. She tried to pull her hand away from Bucky, but he didn't let her go.

"You mustn't do this to yourself, Medea. You _can't_."

"_I can't stop!_" she screamed. "I need to obey or it'll get worse! I'll _kill _myself if I do it again! I mean it – I – I – _SHUT UP, EMMA_!"

Medea ran, through the door, out into the grounds and kept running.

_Not already, no please, please – I shut her away, I shut her away inside my head, so she can't get out – she can't get out – _

_SHE CAN'T GET OUT -_

* * *

"Loki?"

"Come in."

Bucky pushed open the door. Loki was sitting on her bed, dressed in a black shirt and dark green jeans, her hair in a ponytail. She looked younger than usual. There were dark, bruise-like circles under her eyes.

"Loki, you need to get out here. I don't know what's happened to her –"

Loki got up almost immediately. "Her commands are fighting against her developing emotions. Everything in her head is unbalanced, and that could mean –"

"Emma could come back," Bucky said. "She was screaming, Loki, crushing her own hand, saying she had to punish herself for disobeying – then she ran off."

"You're sure she's alone?" Loki was already heading towards the door.

"Yes!" Bucky followed her just as quickly. He could hear people in the rooms around them waking up as well.

They ran downstairs, out of the kitchen and into the grounds. The sun was shining, but it felt cold. Loki was searching through the grounds with her mind at the same time, and soon she found the vortex of terror and pain that was Medea and Emma fighting for control over their shared mind.

* * *

**Thankyou for reading! Please review!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


	14. Chapter 12

Infinity War Chapter 12: **NO MORE RUNNING**

* * *

**Author's Note: This is an important chapter, but it was hard to write as I had to imagine what a more trustful character that was still influenced by Emma. However, I think this chapter is one of the most meaningful so far. I also had to sort out the dialogue… yeah. Super hard to write. **

**Enjoy the story!**

* * *

_I'm paralysed  
Where are my feelings?  
I no longer feel things  
I know I should  
I'm paralysed  
Where is the real me?  
I'm lost and it kills me inside  
I'm paralysed_

_I'm paralysed  
I'm scared to live but I'm scared to die  
And if life is pain then I buried mine a long time ago  
But it's still alive  
And it's taking over me where am I?_

_Paralysed, _by NF

* * *

_Emma was trapped. _

_She couldn't move. The space she was in was small and cramped, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms pinned behind her. She couldn't see a thing – not that there would have been anything to see. _

_She knew that Medea was there – out there in her body, _her _body! Usurping it! _

_Then there was a light. _

_A thin slit of white light that looked to be from under a door. _

_The space around her seemed larger now. Tentatively, she stretched her legs out. Her feet touched cold metal. She stood up, ducking her head in case the ceiling was still low. _

_Emma pushed at the door. It was locked. Typical. Emma laid her hand, palm flat, against the metal. It disintegrated under her fingers. _

_Emma grinned. Easy. _

"_I knew you would get out."_

_Standing in front of her was Medea. They were perfect twins. _

"_Why did you even put me in there?" Emma asked. _

_Medea blinked. "It was the only to get some time to myself."_

"_You want to be alone?" Emma snarled._

"_It's the only way!" Medea shouted. "Human aren't like this! Normal people aren't like this! So why _me_? Why _us_?" _

_Emma didn't break her stare, and stone and metal began to gather around her fingers in preparation to fight. _

"_I don't know, and I don't care," Emma whispered. "I don't care why." _

"_I don't want to fight you, Emma," Medea said. "I don't hate you. I'm scared of you – I don't like you – but I don't want to fight you. I just want to talk."_

_Emma grudgingly relaxed. "You've got five minutes."_

_Medea took a deep breath. "Why did you love Akela?" _

_Emma's eyes widened in shock. She felt tears clawing at the insides of her eyelids. Before she could stop it, she blurted out an answer. "She was honest with me," Emma whispered. "I could tell her anything. Everything. Not like you." Emma felt a sudden sharp spike of jealousy. "Why did she love you?"_

_Medea nodded. "I listened," she said simply. "She told me about herself. Her family. Her parents. She told me about her older brother and little sister." Medea smiled, remembering the similar grin on Akela's face. Medea looked up and saw that Emma was crying. _

"_They're d-dead, aren't they? Her family." Emma whispered. _

"_I don't know," Medea said. "She never said so." _

_Emma sucked in a breath through her teeth. "We should find them."_

_Medea sighed. " We can't. We don't have names, dates of birth, anything. It's _impossible_."_

_Emma's face contorted into a snarl. "Fine! You've given up! Have your free time, then! Don't come looking for me!"_

* * *

Medea knew that she shouldn't have run away. Part of her training was that she had to accept punishment, it had been drilled into her that she deserved it.

So she got up, and began to walk towards Loki and Bucky. She could see them now, and still didn't stop. Medea waited for them to start following her.

"Medea!" Loki ran up to her, panting, quickly joined by Bucky.

"I'm going back to the kitchen. Me and Emma would like to talk to you." That was a lie. Emma was distrustful and refused to let anyone see beneath her shell of anger and denial. Medea could hear her voice, thrumming inside her mind.

Medea knew that, at some point, everyone had to give in. She opened the door and sat down at the table, trying to prepare herself.

She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply. In, out. In. Out.

"Medea?"

Medea's eyes flew open. Loki was looking at her, concerned, and Bucky was sitting at the other end of the table, fiddling with his hands.

"You said you wanted to talk." Loki worried at her lip, pushed her hair back behind her ears, restless, nervous.

Medea nodded. "About Akela. Is that alright?" She looked at Bucky, meaning: _Can you deal with this now, or can it wait? _

Bucky gave a tiny nod.

"Okay." Medea bit her lip. Her foot was tapping against the floor. She wasn't sure how to start. This felt awkward, wrong, talking about someone who'd had such a profound affect on her and Bucky's lives, but it had to be done. "I… don't blame any of you for what happened. It was HYDRA's fault, and we can't con ourselves into thinking that maybe, deep down, we wanted any of this." Medea looked at Bucky, and he seemed to relax, just a little.

"And…" She didn't know how to say this, but somehow she didn't want to think about it. She had to let go. Loki was still looking at her. Medea wished that she would stop. Medea looked down at the table, refusing to meet Loki's emerald gaze. "Akela… when you first forced Emma to see her, you assumed that it was only Emma who… loved Akela. You assumed from the beginning that I was the dark to Emma's light, the stranger in the shadows." Medea paused. The silence stretched between the words, coiling around the sentences. Loki didn't speak, seeming to know that now she had to listen.

"We… were aware of each other even before HYDRA captured us," Medea continued. "Emma resented me, was frightened of me. I saw things second-hand, felt emotions that were bleached of vitality by Emma before me." Another pause. Should she tell everything, or should she wait? Could she trust them entirely? _Yes. _Yes, they were her friends.

"I… think that was why HYDRA got to… to me. I was so desperate to have some control, to feel something real, that I was willing to… give up my humanity." The cold finality in her voice

Bucky didn't move. He felt frozen, reactions sluggish as the realisation sank in. The girl that he'd thought he'd known, the emotionless marble girl, had been even more trapped than Emma herself.

The kitchen door opened, and Shuri walked in. She'd taken her hair out of its elaborate beaded braids, and instead it was in a single long plait that hung halfway down her back. She clearly hadn't slept well, and her dark eyes were still crusted with sleep.

"I heard someone –" she saw Medea, and her eyes widened in shock. "- crying." She finished, rushing over to her. She seemed a whole lot more awake.

"What happened? What can I do?" She hurriedly pulled up a chair and sat down, eyes wide.

Medea looked up with belated eyes. "Nothing," she whispered. "Nothing… They made me kill… a little girl and her mother… a girl like you…"

Shuri bit her lip. She'd never really dealt with anyone crying in her family. She had no idea what to do. But before she could think what to say, Medea spoke again.

"I'm sorry, Shuri. About your brother. It was my fault." Medea's metal hand automatically went to her wrist and began to squeeze. Loki grabbed her arm and stopped her, hissing: "Don't do that again!"

Shuri remembered the terrifying twisting corridors of the Soul World, the animal snarls of her brother and Peter. The way that Peter had scrambled to escape, and how T'Challa had chased him. Shuri hadn't had a chance to speak to T'Challa about what had happened since they got back from the Soul World – wait – what about the rest of them – would they still be affected –

"Shuri? Are you okay?" Loki placed her hand gently on Shuri's arm. The girl jerked and took a shivering breath.

She wasn't sure what to do. Should she tell Loki and Medea about how the others previously trapped in the Soul World might react to being back on Earth? Shuri bit her lip, twisting her fingers together in her lap.

"It's the others. I… don't know how to help them –" Then Shuri saw the light glint off Bucky's arm as he moved (he had been silently listening) and a tiny gasp escaped her lips. She tensed slightly.

"I won't hurt you," Bucky said. He bit his lip. "I'm sorry if I… scared you back there. But you know it wasn't really me, don't you?" Instantly, Medea's head snapped up to look at him along with Shuri.

He leaned forward slightly, his hand gripping the edge of the table, addressing both of them.

"It's wasn't really me," he whispered. Medea's eyes were full of tears again, her hands trembling. Shuri's expression was a mix of fear and shock – he could almost see the terrifying memories of the Soul World replaying behind her eyes.

The wooden table began to creak under his fingers, and he tried to relax his grip. "It wasn't me," he said again, hating himself for how much he had to say this, for how many horrors were his fault. "I promise," he whispered. He wished that Steve were here. He would help him with this. "I promise."

How many times had he said this? How many times saying "It wasn't me, it wasn't me, don't look at _me_," and how many times had he been disproved. He searched for something to do – change the subject.

"What about Peter?" He said, and as the words left him, he found that he had real concern for the kid.

"He's in the infirmary," Shuri said. "I helped Bruce get him down there."

Medea winced. "He's okay, right?"

Loki smiled slightly, looking at her daughter. "You healed him. Of course he's fine."

"I meant _inside_," Medea said.

* * *

_Peter's vision was a blur of winding corridors and running from something that, at first, he couldn't see. _

_When he'd reached the inevitable dead end, he'd turned to face whatever dream monster his brain had conjured up. _

_The monster was himself – not distorted or disfigured, but just as he was - a bloodied, exhausted and helpless child. _

"Peter?" A young woman's voice, echoing slightly, sounded in his ears.

Peter opened his eyes. Medea was sitting next to the bed, staring at him in a way that was slightly unnerving. "Bad dreams?" she asked.

"Y-Yeah." Peter stared back. Her face was concerned now, but he could remember the cold, remorseless mask that had been there before. Remember looking at her laughing as she climbed higher and higher, the smile on her face as she watched him fall… And the terrified face, distorted behind the wall of blue ice – the sudden sharp stab in his shoulder – the cold agony that spread through his body –

"Peter!" Tony's voice, harsh and terrified. Tony's face bled back into vision above him, and Peter could glimpse the light glinting off Medea's arm as she backed away. Tony glared at her. "Keep away from him!" he barked.

"T-Tony –" Peter whispered. He felt the man's hand close around his own. Instantly, Tony was looking at him, concern and fear plain on his features. "Peter," he whispered. "You okay?"

Peter nodded shakily, still reeling from the sudden flood of memories. Medea met his eyes, but looked away quickly. She seemed to know what he'd just experienced – all that she'd done to him. Peter saw the lingering fear in her eyes – she was _scared _of Tony – that was strange. Emma had always been angry at Tony before, vengeful, but never scared. "Don't shout at her," he said. "Can't you see she wants to help?"

"Peter –" Tony tried to continue, but Peter interrupted.

"Just let her talk to me." Peter felt a spike of irritation. Even though he knew that Tony was concerned for him, he was mollycoddling him. "You can listen. Look disapproving. Give the Dad Talk, whatever. Just let her speak."

Tony glared at him. "Fine."

Medea walked towards him, but turned to Tony first. "Stark." She said. Tony didn't break the staring contest. "I forgive you." Tony's face was a picture of shock. He hadn't expected this.

Medea turned away and sat back down in front of Peter.

"You're good now?" Peter asked.

Medea laughed slightly, just at his incredulity. "I'm Medea. I…" God, how did she say this? How do you explain that you're an alternate personality? "I was controlled by HYDRA as well as Emma."

"Multiple personality disorder," Peter said.

"Don't call me that!" Medea snarled. Her metal hand curled around her flesh hand again, but she managed to stop herself.

"It might not be you," Peter said. "It could be Emma."

"That's not why I came though," Medea felt her metal fingers clawing at her flesh hand again. She forced herself to stop. "I came to apologise. We both want to apologise," she amended. "Me and Emma. For – for killing you."

Peter's face froze. How did he answer that? The memories flashed before his eyes again – falling, the agonising impact, the shattered bones stabbing through his organs, puncturing his lungs and heart – feeling hot blood bubble up his throat before blessed darkness enveloped him –

"Thankyou," he muttered, not knowing what else to say. "I know it wasn't you."

Medea felt a prickle of déjà vu at the understanding in his voice.

_It wasn't you._

* * *

**Thankyou for reading! What do you think of Medea? Anything to change? Please comment, any feedback is welcome!**

**Katie Trillion xx**


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